Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many cases involving universal credit claims have been (a) through her Department's complaints process, (b) decided by an Independent Case Examiner and (c) referred to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

The Department has received a total of number of 39,187 Universal Credit complaints up to January 2020.

Details of the number of complaints concerning Universal Credit that have been decided on by the Independence Case Examiner’s is 185 (please note the data is only available from July 2016 to January 2020)

All ICE Reports signpost the complainant to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s Office, via a Member of Parliament, in the event that they are dissatisfied with the outcome of the ICE investigation. We do not hold information about the number of complaints about Universal Credit which were subsequently referred by an MP to the Ombudsman’s Office.

For context, the latest figures show that there are 3 million people on Universal Credit as of 12 March 2020.