Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of universal credit claimants are lone parents under 25.

We can provide an estimate based on households claiming UC by matching the UC household dataset (which contains information about family type), with the people on UC dataset (which contains information about age). The table gives the estimated total number of households on UC and those occupied by single parents under the age of 25 in June 2018. The notes should be read in conjunction with the information provided in the table.

Source: Universal Credit household dataset and people on Universal Credit dataset

Notes:

1. The figures are derived from unpublished information and have not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard.
2. Figures have been rounded to the nearest thousand. Individual figures may not add up to the total due to rounding.
3. A count date of the second Thursday of the month is used when calculating the statistics for the people and households on Universal Credit.
4. The figure for households occupied by single parents has been deduced where the household has a family type of ‘single with child dependent(s)’.
5. Further information on the background and methodology can be accessed here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/739399/universal-credit-statistics-background-methodology.pdf
6. It has not been possible to determine the age of approximately 8,000 single parent households