Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department's test and learn approach to universal credit, what her Department has learned about universal credit during the January pause of its roll-out; and what changes her Department plans to make as a result that learning.

The Universal Credit Agile methodology means we continuously learn during rollout, listening to feedback from our staff, claimants and stakeholders, and building improvements into the system.

We release fortnightly updates of the Universal Credit IT build, with the latest release due on 14 February 2018. In addition to various technical fixes, this release will include the changes necessary to remove waiting days for all new claims made on or after 14 February, as announced in the 2017 Budget. It will also include improvements to the processes for referring claimants for Work Capability Assessments and for claimants to record their work search activity.