Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether compensation payments for Historical Institutional Abuse in Northern Ireland are taken into account in establishing eligibility to claim (a) housing benefit, (b) universal credit and (c) pension credit in (i) Northern Ireland and (ii) England.

The Housing Benefit, Pension Credit and Universal Credit schemes in Northern Ireland are matters for the Northern Ireland Assembly.

With regard to Great Britain, currently, payments made from the scheme would be treated as capital sums, with those sums taken into account in the calculation of all of the benefits mentioned above.

Northern Ireland, Great Britain and Treasury officials are working together on how payments from the scheme should be treated in Northern Ireland.