Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of universal credit recipients have been placed under alternative payment arrangements for the housing cost element of universal credit.

The information requested is not available.

The Department published its strategy for releasing official statistics on Universal Credit in September 2013. As outlined in the strategy, officials are quality assuring data for Universal Credit and formulating a definitive list of what statistics will be provided in the future. These statistics will be published in accordance with the relevant protocols in the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.