Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to paragraph 1.123 of the Spending Review and Autumn Statement 2015, what estimate he has made of the effect of uprating the individual threshold in the minimum income floor for self-employed people on the household income of a tax credit claimant family with two children and one self-employed earner under the age of 25 earning the national minimum wage.

The government is committed to moving the UK from a high tax, high welfare, low wage society to a lower tax, lower welfare, higher wage society. This remains the case, and Universal Credit (UC) is delivering this.

UC is fundamentally different from the current legacy benefit system and supports people into work and encourages them to earn more.

Therefore there is no meaningful way of comparing an unreformed Tax Credit system with UC. The Government has committed to transitional arrangements as we reform the benefits and Tax Credit system. Those transferred by DWP from tax credits to UC will receive Transitional Protection. In addition, estimates of entitlements under UC of the sort requested will vary depending on assumptions on the level of earnings.