Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has made an estimate of the number of disabled people who previously received a disability premium that have been migrated onto universal credit without transitional protections.

We are not currently migrating any claimants from legacy benefits to Universal Credit. Claimants only move from existing benefits to Universal Credit through natural migration when they experience a significant change in their circumstances that triggers a new claim to benefit. Their entitlement is then calculated on the rules of their new benefit. This is a long-established principle which we maintain for Universal Credit.

Subject to Parliamentary approval of the Managed Migration regulations, we will be spending £3.1 billion on transitional protections to ensure that no one loses out at the point of transition. This includes those currently receiving Severe Disability Premium (SDP). These regulations will prevent these claimants from moving over before the managed migration process, and provide financial protection for those who have already moved over.

We do not hold data on all disabled people receiving all disability premiums that have moved onto Universal Credit; however, published data shows that of the 42,000 people who were on Employment Support Allowance (ESA) and started a claim on Universal Credit Full Service within one month of closing their claim between May 2015 and February 2018, 15,000 were on ESA (Income Related) with Enhanced Disability Premium (EDP) and/or SDP. Of those, 1,000 were in receipt of SDP only, 11,000 in receipt of EDP only and 3,000 in receipt of EDP and SDP.

This is published here:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/714479/ad-hoc-statistics-income-related-employment-and-support-allowance-february-2018.pdf