Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has plans to provide transitional protection to people that will naturally migrate to universal credit as a result of a change in circumstances.

Claimants only move from existing benefits to Universal Credit through natural migration when they experience a significant change in their circumstances that triggers a new claim to a benefit that Universal Credit replaces. Their entitlement is then calculated on the rules of their new benefit and their new circumstances. Transitional protection is designed to ensure those claimants who are moved onto Universal Credit without a change in circumstances receive the same level of entitlement to Universal Credit as they were entitled to on legacy benefits.

As Universal Credit is simpler, the most recent estimates show that around 700,000 households will get entitlements they were not claiming under the legacy system, worth on average £285 per month.

We have also introduced a number of measures to assist claimants during their transition to Universal Credit. Claimants who naturally migrate to Universal Credit can access a Universal Credit advance, which is worth up to 100 per cent of their indicative award and is available from the date of their claim. This advance is currently repayable over 12 months, but as announced in the 2018 Budget, from October 2021 the maximum repayment period will be extended to 16 months. Claimants may also be entitled to a two week Universal Credit Transitional Housing Payment. From July 2020 the Government is introducing a new two-week run on for income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support and income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance.