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Written question asked by Lord Field of Birkenhead (Independent (affiliation)) on Tuesday, 2 July 2019, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 8 July 2019 (named day). It was answered by Lord Sharma (Conservative) on Monday, 8 July 2019 on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions.

Universal Credit

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 24 June 2019 to Question 264329 on universal credit, of the 749,000 claimants with deductions from universal credit for non-universal credit debits, how many of those tax credit overpayments were repaid by each year to which those overpayments were made to those claimants.

Answer

Tax Credit overpayments were referred to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Debt Management from 2016/17.

The table shows Tax Credit recoveries for 2018/19 apportioned across the financial year in which the Tax Credit overpayment ended*.

Tax Credit Overpayment Period End Date

Percentage of Recoveries by Value

Unknown

Less than 0.05%

2003-04

0.10%

2004-05

0.5%

2005-06

0.4%

2006-07

0.5%

2007-08

1.2%

2008-09

2.3%

2009-10

1.6%

2010-11

2.9%

2011-12

4.1%

2012-13

4.9%

2013-14

6.1%

2014-15

7.3%

2015-16

9.0%

2016-17

14.1%

2017-18

26.7%

2018-19

18.2%

Universal Credit (UC) is expected to lead to savings across welfare as we are able to adjust benefit entitlement in line with changing circumstances in real time. Internal and external data matches are increasingly helping inform benefit payments and alerting staff to check for any undeclared changes in people’s circumstances.

When recovering benefit overpayments, the DWP ensures that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect claimants from any undue financial hardship.

*The data provided in this response has been sourced from internal management information and was not intended for public release. It should therefore not be compared to any other, similar data subsequently released by the DWP. All figures have been rounded to one decimal place. Due to this rounding, the figures will not sum 100%.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
272126
Session
2017-19
Related items
Universal Credit
Tuesday, 18 June 2019
Written questions
House of Commons
Subjects
Debts Overpayments Repayments Dividend tax credits Universal credit
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk