Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of claimants of support for mortgage interest claimants have (i) received advice on their options for alternative support when support for mortgage interest ends and (ii) applied for replacement loan payments.

To date, the department has sent information to around 109,000 claimants at the address at which they have been claiming Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI). Around 95% of the live caseload have been contacted and we continue to take steps to contact the remaining claimants. The remaining 5% of cases include those where we have so far been unable to make contact for a variety of reasons, such as where we need to obtain a current telephone number for the claimant. As of week commencing 5th March 2018, over 10,100 claimants (around 11% of the live caseload) have stated their intention to take up the offer of an SMI loan.