Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the annual amount of unclaimed welfare benefits.

The Department regularly promotes and raises awareness of the benefits available to the public including through stakeholder support and the Help for Households campaign, with our network of over 600 Jobcentres standing ready to help those who need it.

Since the beginning of the Pension Credit awareness campaign in April 2022, weekly applications for Pension Credit increased by an average of 73% compared to the year average before the campaign began (April 2021 to March 2022). We have used various channels to promote Pension Credit including advertising on television and radio and social media promotion.

The Department has recently written to over 11 million pensioners to notify them of the up-rating their State Pension. A leaflet accompanying the notification included our updated Pension Credit campaign messaging to encourage eligible pensioners to make a claim. Our work on promoting Pension Credit will continue throughout this year.

For Universal Credit, the independent benefit calculators on gov.uk and the free Help to Claim support from Citizens Advice are available to help people check their eligibility and claim Universal Credit.

An extra £22 million investment was announced in March to extend free and impartial support through Help to Claim to help people to make a Universal Credit claim. This additional investment will ensure that support is available to help people make a new Universal Credit claim and manage their claim until they receive their first payment.