Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many households had a Universal Credit deduction in Enfield North constituency from (a) March 2022 to February 2023, (b) March 2021 to February 2022 and (c) March 2020 to February 2021; and how many children lived in such households in each of those periods.

The primary aim of the Universal Credit deductions policy is to protect vulnerable claimants by providing a last resort repayment method for arrears of essential services. In recent years, the standard UC deduction cap has been reduced twice – from 40% to 30% of the Standard Allowance in October 2019, and down to 25% in April 2021.

From April 2020 to July 2020, a temporary freeze on government and third party deductions was introduced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The requested information is provided in the separate spreadsheet.