Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of claimants of employment and support allowance that were underpaid, had their income reduced when they were transferred from incapacity benefit.

No-one suffered a cash loss when they were converted from incapacity benefits to Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) because, where the amount of ESA they were entitled to was lower than the previous incapacity benefit award, it was ‘topped up’ to match their previous award by a transitional addition.

A Written Statement and Frequently Asked Question document was deposited in the House of Commons Library on Wednesday 17^th October which can be found at http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/business-papers/commons/deposited-papers/. Ad hoc statistics can also be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/esa-underpayments-forecast-numbers-affected-forecast-expenditure-and-progress-on-checking.