Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the reasons for refusals of applications for universal credit in the last twelve months.

Based on our internal data for August 2018, in total 28 per cent of claims did not complete the process.

Of this figure around 9 per cent of claims* were closed due to non-entitlement, for example because of capital or not passing the Habitual Residence Test. The remainder (around 18 per cent**) were closed due to non-compliance with the process, for example failure to sign a Claimant Commitment and failing to provide evidence to support their claim.

* due to recent methodological changes in calculating reasons for claims closing the percentages provided here may not match to those provided previously.

**percentages do not add up to 28 per cent owing to rounding.