Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reason Financial Assistance Scheme payments are (a) treated as earned income and (b) counted against Universal Credit.

A guiding principle for means-tested benefits, under differing Governments such as Universal Credit, State Pension Credit and Housing Benefit, is that they are not paid to people who have sufficient other income available to meet the same need. As occupational and private pensions are paid to provide support to help people meet their living costs, they are taken fully into account in the assessment of entitlement to Universal Credit. Therefore where the Financial Assistance Scheme steps in to replace pension scheme income which has become unfunded, that payments are taken into account in the same way as would have applied to the pension payments when calculating entitlement to means-tested benefits. Financial Assistance Scheme payments are treated as unearned income.