Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the number of individuals who have lost their severe disability premium when moved onto universal credit.

Our draft Regulations will ensure that eligible claimants in receipt of Severe Disability Premium are only moved to Universal Credit as part of a managed migration process, and through that process will see their payments protected. We are spending over £3 billion on Transitional Protections for 1.1 million households, to ensure that no one loses out at the point of transition. We have also made provision for those eligible claimants who have already naturally migrated to Universal Credit to be considered for Severe Disability Premium transitional payments. These will be made as on-going monthly payments and an additional lump-sum to cover the period since they moved to Universal Credit.

Published data shows that of the 42,000 people who were on ESA and started a claim on Universal Credit (Full Service) within one month of closing their ESA claim between May 2015 and February 2018, 4,000 were in receipt of the Severe Disability Premium.