Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many universal credit claimants are re-paying benefit overpayments at 40 per cent from their standard allowance in the most recent period for which figures are available.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has a duty to protect public funds and an obligation to ensure that, overpaid benefit payments are recovered in accordance with the appropriate social security legislation.
I can confirm that there were 60,936 UC claimants who had a deduction from their UC as a recovery against a benefit overpayment within the last 31 days. This total includes both past and new overpayments.
The mean value of the outstanding balances is £1,116.98, the median figure is £328.29. These cases include a small number of high value debts.
The information on the average recovery period and the number of claimants re-paying overpayments at 40 per cent of their standard allowance is not available, and to provide it would incur disproportionate costs.