Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the rate of clawback on Universal Credit on people employed with (a) irregular and (b) low incomes.

The government is committed to a sustainable, long-term approach to drive up opportunity and drive down poverty across the UK. As announced by the Chancellor in the Autumn Budget, a new Fair Repayment Rate has now been introduced from 30 April 2025, reducing the Universal Credit (UC) overall deductions cap from 25% to 15% of a customer’s UC standard allowance. This measure will help approximately 1.2 million of the poorest households benefit by an average of £420 a year.

The Department has also committed to reviewing Universal Credit to make sure it is doing the job we want it to, to make work pay and tackle poverty.

A key part of UC’s core design is that it supports customers with their finances. As part of our work to review UC, we are working with expert stakeholders to understand the impacts and causes as well as considering the ways in which we can better support customers who experience irregular or fluctuating household income.