Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of the introduction of Universal Credit on the level of payments made to private landlords.

The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

The Department does not hold data on the level of payments made by claimants to private landlords, either under Universal Credit or legacy benefits. While we can identify the value of a Universal Credit housing element or a managed payment to a landlord, we do not have access to landlord rent account data and therefore cannot determine what was actually paid by the claimant. This applies across both the social and private rented sectors.