Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the change has been in the amount of (a) employment and support allowance and (b) other incapacity benefit paid in each month since May 2013.

The information is in the table.

Monthly incapacity benefits expenditure, May 2013 to January 2015

Notes

1) Totals may not sum, because of rounding.

2) Other incapacity benefits comprise Incapacity Benefit, Severe Disablement Allowance and Income Support on grounds of incapacity for work.

3) Figures are for total benefit expenditure paid to claimants, and therefore do not include benefit recoveries and accounting adjustments. They are, however, consistent with figures that are net of these adjustments and shown in the tables published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-2015.

4) Annual uprating of benefits by a mix of 1% and the Consumer Prices Index (2.7%) increases spending from April 2014, though this is masked by the fact that April has fewer days than March, and that increases do not occur at the start of April.

5) The main reason for month-on-month variations is the number of days in the month.