Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people have had deductions from their universal credit of (a) 40 per cent and (b) 30 per cent for the repayment of advances on that benefit.

Of the eligible Universal Credit Full Service claims due a payment in October 2018 (990,000 claims – rounded to the nearest 10,000):

• 11,000 (rounded to the nearest 1,000) were repaying advances at 40% of their Standard Allowance. This is 1% of eligible claims and 3% of claims that were repaying an advance.
• 4,000 (rounded to the nearest 1,000) were repaying advances at 30% of their Standard Allowance. This is less than 0.5% of eligible claims and 1% of claims that were repaying an advance.

The claim count figures in this text will not match the official statistics due to methodological differences.

At Autumn Budget 2018 we announced that from October 2019, we will reduce the maximum rate at which deductions can be made from a Universal Credit award from 40% to 30% of the standard allowance. The total saving for claimants is £25 million in 2019/20, increasing to £65 million in 2023/24.

This is detailed in Table 1.8 in the Budget 2018 which can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/budget-2018-documents/budget-2018

This will ensure that those on Universal Credit are supported to repay debts in a more sustainable and manageable way. Additionally, from October 2021, the government will also increase the period over which advances will be recovered, from 12 to 16 months.