To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many households received an advance payment of Universal Credit in each of the last 12 months for which this data is available.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of households with successful new claims for Universal Credit received an advance payment in each of the last 12 months for which this data is available.

Advances of Universal Credit can be made at the start of a claim, to tide people over until the end of the first monthly assessment period, and for budgeting needs. For UC households that have advances, around half have budgeting advances and half have new claim and benefit transfer advances.

The information requested is provided in the attached spreadsheet.

Notes for the data tables:

1. Great Britain level figures have been provided.
2. Figures are provisional and are subject to retrospective change as later data becomes available.
3. Data for the 12month period ending on February 2023 has been provided in line with the latest available UC Household Statistics.
4. PQ108198 reports the percentage of households repaying an advance debt in August 2022.
5. Table 1: The number of households has been rounded to the nearest 100. The proportion of households with different types of advances has been rounded to the nearest percent. The proportions have been calculated as number of households with a specific type of advance divided by the total number of households that have at least one type of advance. The sum of the different type of advances won’t match the total number as households can receive more than one type of advance.
6. Table 2: The proportion of successful new claims that received an advance payment has been rounded to the nearest percent. Successful New Claims have been defined as those with UC payments made in their first assessment period, including those with £0 UC payments. Advance Payments made to Successful New Claims refers to New Claim and Benefit Transfer advances only.

Attachment (xlsx, 163.9KB)