Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will publish the total amount of national insurance contributions made by recipients of Contributory Employment Support Allowance.

Entitlement to contributory Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) is based on a claimant’s National Insurance (NI) contribution record.

Aggregating each ESA claimant’s NI contributions would require detailed analysis of individual claimants’ administrative records across both DWP and HMRC and would incur disproportionate cost.