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Incapacity Benefit

Answer

The Department publishes quarterly statistics on benefit combinations on Stat-Xplore, which include those claiming incapacity benefits, where an individual claims one or more of Universal Credit (Health Journey), Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), Incapacity Benefit (IB), Severe Disablement Allowance (DSA), and Income Support (Incapacity Based) (IS(IB)).

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes mid-year population estimates for England and Wales, and Scotland.

The administration of Incapacity benefits in Northern Ireland is devolved to the Department for Communities.

The extracted statistics and the calculated estimated percentage of the total population on incapacity benefits in February 2024 are shown in the following table.

Number of individuals claiming incapacity benefits, February 2024, mid-year population estimates for England and Wales mid-2023 and Scotland mid-2022, estimated percentage of the population on incapacity benefits, February 2024.

Regions	Claimants on incapacity benefits	Mid-year Population Estimates	Estimated percentage of the total population on incapacity benefits
North East	186,734	2,711,380	6.9%
North West	474,790	7,600,126	6.2%
Yorkshire and The Humber	318,191	5,594,125	5.7%
East Midlands	244,835	4,991,265	4.9%
West Midlands	319,138	6,085,687	5.2%
East of England	260,988	6,468,665	4.0%
London	404,646	8,945,309	4.5%
South East	340,698	9,482,507	3.6%
South West	262,208	5,811,259	4.5%
Wales	218,571	3,164,404	6.9%
Scotland	364,308	5,447,700	6.7%

Source: Stat-Xplore, ONS Population Estimates

Note:

1. Statistical disclosure control has been applied to this table to avoid the release of confidential data. Percentages are given to 1 decimal place.
2. ‘Claimants on incapacity benefits’ includes where an individual claims one or more of Universal Credit (Health Journey), Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), Incapacity Benefit (IB), Severe Disablement Allowance (DSA), and Income Support (Incapacity Based) (IS(IB)), at the end of February 2024 and is taken from the ‘Benefit Combinations - Data from May 2019 for England and Wales’ dataset and the ‘Benefit Combinations – Data from May 2019 for Scotland’ dataset on Stat-Xplore.
3. ‘Mid-year Population Estimates’ are produced by the Office for National Statistics for England and Wales to mid-2023 and for Scotland to mid-2022.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

HL1728

Session

2024-26

Subjects

Incapacity benefit

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk