Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to Autumn Budget 2018, whether the Department has plans to bring forward the two week run-on of legacy benefits for the universal credit managed migration pilot.

In the 2018 Autumn Budget, we committed to allowing DWP income-related legacy benefits to continue for two-weeks after a claim has been made to Universal Credit from July 2020. This measure will give around 1.1 million households a one-off gain of approximately £200 between 2020/21 and 2023/24.

The Department has committed to supporting all claimants who are moved on to Universal Credit as part of the managed migration process. The draft regulations, currently before Parliament, will deliver on our commitment to provide transitional protection to those who are managed migrated onto Universal Credit without a change in their circumstances. The Department already offers a range of support to claimants who migrate to Universal Credit, such as advances worth up to 100 per cent of their indicative award. Claimants may also be eligible for the two-week Universal Credit Transitional Housing Payment.

The Department will be introducing a Discretionary Hardship Payment to support those claimants who will be managed migrated as part of the pilot phase. The power for Discretionary Hardship Payments is broad and could be used to pay the equivalent of the two-week legacy run on to the 10,000 claimants who will be moved to Universal Credit as part of the piloting phase and who are in hardship on account of the absence of the run on. We will also have the discretion to make payments if any other issues related to managed migration have resulted in hardship.