Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment she has made of the effect of natural migration to universal credit on severely disabled people.

Our Regulations will ensure that eligible claimants in receipt of Severe Disability Premium are only moved to Universal Credit as part of a managed migration process, and through that process will see their payments protected. We are spending over £3 billion on Transitional Protections for 1.1 million households, to ensure that no one loses out at the point of transition. We have also made provision for those eligible claimants who have already naturally migrated to Universal Credit to be considered for Severe Disability Premium transitional payments. These will be made as on-going monthly payments and an additional lump-sum to cover the period since they moved to Universal Credit.

Over £2.4 billion in benefits are currently unclaimed and Universal Credit ensures that vulnerable claimants receive the money they are entitled to. More severely disabled people will receive higher payments under Universal Credit, with around 1 million disabled households gaining on average around £100 more per month.