Asked by: Lord Bishop of Leicester (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Sherlock on 3 February (HL13743), what assessment they have made of the reasons that Universal Credit sanction rates vary by (1) ethnicity, and (2) region.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No formal assessment has been made, but work is ongoing to expand the benefit sanction statistics, detailed below, to allow analysis in the future.
The Department regularly publishes Universal Credit sanction rate statistics for Great Britain as part of the benefit sanction statistics. These include a breakdown of the sanction rate by ethnic group and an analysis of the sanction ethnicity statistics which can be found at section 5 of the latest publication.
The Department also published an ad-hoc analysis in February 2025 of the Variation in the Universal Credit sanction rate by jobcentres using the UC Sanction Rate dataset on Stat-Xplore.
The ‘Benefit sanction statistics to August 2025’ and the ‘Variation in the Universal Credit sanction rate by jobcentres from January 2017 to August 2024’ are provided in the attached PDF documents.
Asked by: Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the removal of the two-child benefit limit to unemployed refugees receiving Universal Credit is perceived as fair by the public.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
There are strict rules that govern who can access benefits. Parents who are not British or Irish nationals can only access Universal Credit with a valid immigration status of a kind that gives them the right to access public funds. Most migrants with temporary visas cannot access the benefit system. Access to public funds and benefits is usually at the point of settlement, which for most people will be after they have lived in the UK legally for five years, and the Home Office Earned Settlement policy consultation is looking at increasing this to ten years. The Home Office is also consulting on changing the default position to maintain No Recourse to Public Funds at settlement and lifting this only at the point of British citizenship. This would mean that migrants would need to wait longer to access benefits.
DWP also plans to consult on changes to the benefit rules to prioritise access for those who are making an economic contribution to the UK. The consultation will look at how the benefit rules apply to everyone arriving or returning to the UK.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has set a target for the number of job starts to be offered to long-term unemployed 18–21-year-olds on Universal Credit in Birmingham and Solihull during the first 6 months of the Jobs Guarantee scheme.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The government is investing over £1.5 billion in tackling youth unemployment and inactivity, including £820 million for the expanded Youth Guarantee and £725 million for the Growth and Skills Levy. This will provide young people aged 16–24 with greater support into work and learning, including a Jobs Guarantee offering fully subsidised paid work for every 18–21-year-old on Universal Credit for 18 months.
In line with the Government’s December 2025 announcement, the Jobs Guarantee will begin its rollout from Spring 2026 in 6 areas which have some of the highest need, including Birmingham and Solihull.
The first 6 months of the Jobs Guarantee scheme will provide over 1000 job starts across the 6 areas.
National roll-out of the Jobs Guarantee across Great Britain will take place later in 2026. The programme is expected to support around 55,000 young people over the next three years, contributing to this government’s long-term ambition to increase employment and reduce long-term youth unemployment.
This Government is taking action to ensure young people have clear pathways into work, with opportunities that build skills, confidence and long-term employability.
In addition, through the expanded Youth Guarantee, we are creating around 300,000 additional opportunities for young people to gain workplace experience and training.
This includes up to 150,000 extra work experience placements and up to 145,000 bespoke training opportunities designed with employers through our Sector based Work Academy Programmes, or SWAPs. These programmes provide young people with real, practical experience linked to vacancies in priority sectors, improving their prospects of moving quickly into work.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what data his Department holds on the total cost to the public purse of universal credit payments for foreign nationals in the last 5 years.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Jeremy Corbyn (Independent - Islington North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the amount of money paid directly from housing benefit to private landlords in each region of England.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Information on the average weekly amount of Housing Benefit paid to private landlords, by regions, is available on Stat-Xplore via the Housing Benefit official statistics (https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/). The information can be found in the Housing Benefit – Data from April 2018 dataset and is currently available to August 2025.
Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest, and if needed, can access guidance on how to extract the information required. There is also a Universal Credit Official Statistics: Stat-Xplore user guide.
Asked by: Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat - Taunton and Wellington)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if her Department will review the Universal Credit capital rules that reduce or remove entitlement for claimants with savings above £6,000 and £16,000, in cases where a claimant has a lifelong disability or health condition which means they will never be able to work; and what assessment she has made of the impact of those provisions on disabled claimants who need to build savings to meet disability‑related costs such as specialist equipment, mobility aids and home adaptations.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The current system already permits people with capital between £6,000 and £16,000 to receive means-tested support through a tapered reduction in entitlement to Universal Credit. It also includes a specific capital disregard for funds that are required for essential home alterations - for example, if these are needed to meet disability-related needs. There are no plans to introduce additional exemptions.
Extra cost benefits such as Personal Independence Payment are available to eligible customers with long-term health conditions and disabilities. These benefits are to contribute towards the additional costs associated with these conditions and can be used according to the claimant’s own priorities. They can be paid in addition to other financial and practical support which someone can receive, including provision from the NHS and Local Authorities towards specialist equipment, mobility aids, and home adaptations.
Asked by: Terry Jermy (Labour - South West Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to help tackle inequalities in access to healthy, minimally processed food through education.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The national curriculum aims to teach children how to cook and how to apply the principles of healthy eating and nutrition. In response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review, the department has set out that we will enhance the identity of food education by clearly distinguishing cooking and nutrition, which will be renamed food and nutrition, as a distinct strand within design and technology.
The updated relationships, sex and health education statutory guidance includes content on healthy eating. Pupils are taught what constitutes a healthy diet, the principles of planning and preparing a range of healthy meals, the characteristics of a poor diet and risks associated with unhealthy eating.
The School Food Standards regulate the food and drink provided at both lunchtime and at other times of the school day. We aim to revise the School Food Standards and are engaging with stakeholders to ensure they support our work to create the healthiest generation of children in history.
From September 2026, we will extend free school meals to all children from households in receipt of Universal Credit. This will ensure that over 500,000 additional children receive a free and nutritious lunchtime meal.
Asked by: Paul Holmes (Conservative - Hamble Valley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to help reduce the time taken to respond to casework queries from Members of Parliament.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department recognises that the recent increase in the volume of MP enquiries, alongside a rise in the complexity of cases requiring more detailed investigation, has contributed to delays in meeting our standard response timescales.
To address this, the Department has taken a number of steps to improve the timeliness and efficiency of responses to MP enquiries:
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact on levels of pensioner poverty among mixed-age couples of the requirement that both members of a couple must have reached State Pension age in order to be eligible for Pension Credit or pension-age Housing Benefit.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Ensuring that individuals can get into, progress and stay in work is important in helping them to continue saving for their own retirement and contribute to the wider economy.
The requirement for mixed age couples to seek financial support from the working-age social security system until both members of the couple reach State Pension Age ensures that, once in receipt of Universal Credit, the younger partner can access the same employment support that is available for customers below State Pension Age including dedicated employment support for customers over the age of 50. The pension-age partner is placed in the no-work related requirements group.
The Government recognises the critical role Universal Credit has to play in tackling poverty and making work pay and is taking important steps to support people with their living costs. For the first time ever, we have introduced a sustained above inflation increase to the Universal Credit standard allowance for all claimants. From April 2026, this will see the standard allowance uprated by 3.8%, followed by a further 2.3%.
Asked by: Kirsty Blackman (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what (a) number and (b) proportion of Universal Credit claimants have income levels above the income tax personal allowance.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The requested information is provided below.
a) In November 2025, 1.9 million people on UC had net earnings above £1047.50 (which is the £12,570 annual personal allowance divided by 12). This includes earnings from employment and self-employment.
b) This equates to 22% of all people on UC.
Notes:
Volume is rounded to the nearest 100,000
Percentage is rounded to the nearest 1%