Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has conducted a distributional impact analysis of the Government's change of policy of switching support for mortgage interest to loan payments from April 2018.

The Department has not undertaken a distributional analysis of impacts. All existing claimants will be offered a support for mortgage interest loan paid at the same rate that is currently available as part of their benefit entitlement. The new loans-based support for mortgage interest will only affect claimants’ financial situation on the sale or transfer of the property, when the loan will be recovered from any available equity.

The Impact Assessment and Explanatory Memorandum published alongside the Loans for Mortgage Interest Regulations in July 2017 provide information on the affected groups (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2017/725/impacts).