Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much Universal Credit was paid to (a) foreign nationals and (b) households with refugee status in October 2025.
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: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 27 October 2025 to Question 83169 Universal Credit: Telephone Services, how many and what proportion of calls to the Universal Credit helpline dropped in each of the last five years.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP does not maintain a telephony reporting measure for “dropped calls”
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 17 October 2025 to Question 83176 on Universal Credit, how many and what proportion of claims were made by people with the support of a paid interpreter; and what was the the total cost of (a) translation and (b) interpretation for supporting claimants in each of the last ten years.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department does not retain data on how many and what proportion of Universal Credit claims were made by people requiring the support of paid interpretation services. The breakdown of costs for translation and interpretation across all benefits including Universal Credit, from 2019/2020 to present is shown below. This data is not available prior to 2019.
| Translation Costs (including Pension Credit Customers) | Interpretation Costs |
2019/20 | £ 472,539 | £ 2,219,613 |
2020/21 | £ 398,270 | £ 3,537,872 |
2021/22 | £ 518,927 | £ 6,823,140 |
2022/23 | £ 641,747 | £ 5,668,822 |
2023/24 | £ 677,614 | £ 6,195,053 |
2024/25 | £ 919,390 | £ 8,676,773 |
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much his Department has spent on social media advertising by (a) influencer and (b) organisation in each of the last five financial years.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
I refer the Hon. member to the answer I gave on 20 October 2025 to PQ 81251.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 27 October 2025 to question 82834 on Social Security Benefits: English Language, how many claimants have been required to attend English language courses as a work preparation activity in each of the last five years.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is not held centrally and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate his Department has made of the number of benefits claimants who require translation support during appointments; and at what cost to the public purse.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department does not hold data on the number of individual claimants who require interpreter support.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 27 October 2025 to Question 82834 on Social Security Benefits: English Language, what the total cost was for English language courses as a work preparation activity in each of the last five years.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This information is not held centrally and to provide it would incur disproportionate costs.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the (a) average waiting time for people calling and (b) time people spent on hold to Jobcentres was in the last year.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We cannot provide the data requested for this Parliamentary Question. Jobcentres span multiple benefit streams and business functions and therefore we do not retain telephony data specifically relating to Jobcentres.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many habitual residence tests related to Universal Credit assessments have been granted in each of the last five years.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The table below gives the number of Universal Credit (UC) Habitual Residence Test (HRT) assessments that resulted in a ‘pass’ decision in the past five years.
Date Decision Entered on Admin System | Number of UC HRT 'Pass' Decisions |
April 2020 to March 2021 | 912,000 |
April 2021 to March 2022 | 1,029,000 |
April 2022 to March 2023 | 527,000 |
April 2023 to March 2024 | 524,000 |
April 2024 to March 2025 | 798,000 |
April 2025 to September 2025 | 400,000 |
(Source: DWP UC HRT Administrative data)
Notes:
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the total amount of Universal Credit was paid to deceased recipients in each of the last ten financial years.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP does not hold this information over the requested period. DWP has operational data used to identify and recover UC overpayments from deceased recipients, although this does not cover the full time period requested and is not considered to be of suitable quality to accurately answer the question.