Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what impact assessment her Department has undertaken on the recent reform of pension credit; and if she will publish that impact assessment.

The change to the Pension Credit rules was legislated for in the Welfare Reform Act 2012. As part of the Parliamentary process, an Equality Impact Assessment published on the 9 November 2011, which included an assessment of the impacts of Universal Credit reforms on older couples, including mixed aged couples. This can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-equality-impact-assessment

On 28 February 2019 we published an ad-hoc statistical release which provides analysis relating to mixed age couples estimated to be affected by the change in policy to be implemented on 15 May 2019. This can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mixed-age-couples-benefit-impacts-of-ending-access-to-pension-credit-and-pension-age-housing-benefit