Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of universal credit applicants wait more than (a) six and (b) 10 weeks after making their claim before they receive any income.

We are intending to publish further data on payment timeliness in due course, but based on our latest internal data, for week ending 19 June, we estimate that some 80% of cases were paid in full at the end of the first assessment period.

For the 20% of cases who were not paid in full we estimate around a third have not signed up to their claimant commitment so cannot be paid until they have. The other two thirds have an outstanding verification issue, such as providing bank statements, evidence of childcare costs, or proof of rent. Many of these claimants receive a part-payment where elements of the claim have been verified.