Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the repayments to claimants that were underpaid employment and support allowance will include interest.

We will be reviewing all those cases potentially affected and paying any arrears of past payments that are due. Our focus is on paying arrears to claimants in line with the primary legislation.

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.