Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the effect of the roll-out of full service universal credit on (a) the number of food parcels distributed by local food banks (b) the number of evictions from private rented accommodation, (c) the number of evictions from local authority rented accommodation and (d) the academic attainment of children eligible for free school meals.

People use food banks for many reasons, and it would be misleading to link them to any single cause. We are constantly reviewing research carried out by organisations including the Trussell Trust, to add to our understanding of food bank use. Work offers people the best opportunity to get out of poverty and Universal Credit gets people into work faster and staying in work longer than the outdated legacy benefits system. UC claimants are 4 percentage points more likely to be in work within 6 months than JSA claimants.

Evictions are not a new feature of the rental market. These are matters between tenants and landlords and not directly related to the provision of benefits. This is not something the Department collects data on.

As a safeguard for people needing more support, we have a well-established system of hardship payments, benefit advances and budgeting loans. The Autumn Budget 2017, introduced a further package of measures, these include: making advances of up to 100 per cent of the indicative award available and increasing the repayment period to 12 months; removing the 7 day waiting period; providing an additional payment of 2 weeks of Housing Benefit to support claimants when they transition to UC.

The government’s new criteria for free school meals eligibility are forecast to increase the number of children eligible for this vital benefit by 2022, compared to the previous benefits system. In addition, our transitional protections will mean that all children currently receiving a free meal will continue to do so.

In the government’s response to its consultation on the new free school meals criteria, published in February 2018, we indicated that the impact of the new free school meals threshold and the roll out of Universal Credit, on data, showing the performance of disadvantaged pupils is likely to be relatively minor, in the context of the normal levels of change schools see in their free school meals cohorts year on year.