Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask Her Majesty's Government (1) how many, and (2) what proportion of, new universal credit payments have deductions as a result of repayment of (a) budgeting loans and advances, (b) universal credit advances, (c) universal credit overpayments, and (d) tax credit overpayments, in each month from March 2019 to the most recent month for which data are available.

We carefully balance our duty to the taxpayer to recover overpayments with our support for claimants. Safeguards are in place to ensure deductions are manageable; from 12 April 2021, we further reduced the cap on deductions from Universal Credit awards to 25 per cent and lengthened the payback period from 12 months to 24 meaning in effect someone can receive 25 payments over 24 months, giving them more flexibility over the payments of their UC award. This will also allow claimants to retain more of their award, giving additional financial security.

New Claims Advances are available which allows claimants to receive up to 100 per cent of their estimated UC payment upfront. Advances are designed to ensure that the most vulnerable claimants receive the money they need to live on during their transition to UC. Claimants have the option to spread twenty-five UC payments over twenty-four months, giving them more flexibility over the payments of their UC award.

From 3rd April 2020, deductions from Universal Credit for some government debt, such as Tax Credits, benefit overpayments and Social Fund Loans were suspended for 3 months, which resulted in many claimants seeing an increase in the amount they received while allowing staff to prioritise processing the unprecedented number of new benefits claims.

Customers can contact the Department if they are experiencing financial hardship in order to discuss a reduction in their rate of repayment, depending on financial circumstances.

The information requested is provided in the attached spreadsheet.