Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if her Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of an application for Universal Credit automatically triggering a claim for Council Tax Support.

Council Tax Support is administered by the Local Authority and is not a DWP benefit, therefore before we have determined entitlement to Universal credit, it is not appropriate for the department to trigger a claim for Council Tax Support automatically. A significant number of UC claims do not have an entitlement so notifying Councils before entitlement is established would present a number of risks to Councils.