Universal Credit
Work and Pensions
Karen Buck (Westminster North, Labour)
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate his Department has made of the childcare support needed in the universal credit to make work pay for a lone parent earning £6 an hour for 25 hours a week who has a child aged (a) one and (b) six.
Maria Miller (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Disabled People), Work and Pensions; Basingstoke, Conservative)
holding answer
Estimating the amount of child care support that will be available to lone parents in universal credit in order to make work pay will depend on overall affordability and weekly child care costs.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions announced in the second reading of the Welfare Reform Bill that there would be an additional element in universal credit to support child care costs, and that at least the same amount of money will be invested in this as in the existing system. He will provide more detail during passage of the Bill.