Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 8 April 2019 to Question 240478, for what reason the decision was made to extend the recovery period for advances to 16 months.

Currently, the maximum amount of an advance is determined by the claimants expected UC payment and the need to repay it over 12 months at a maximum deduction rate of 40% of the standard allowance.

We have announced that we will reduce this maximum rate to 30% to ensure that claimants with the highest rate of deductions will keep more of their monthly payment. UC claimants who currently have deductions of over 30% will benefit from this change, because they will have up to 10% more of their Universal Credit standard allowance available each month.

We recognise that this could impact the maximum advance available to claimants, to ensure that this does not happen and that claimants still receive the level of support they need, we have increased the amount of time claimants have to repay the Advance from 12 to 16 months.