Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the number of families who will have marginal deduction rates over (a) 50, (b) 60, (c) 70, (d) 80 and (e) 90 per cent in 2015-16; and what his projections of those figures are for each year to 2020-21.

We are unable to provide this analysis to a sufficiently robust standard.

The government will simplify the process of applying for and receiving benefits by moving welfare claimants to the Universal Credit (UC) system. UC will get rid of the worst aspects of the legacy system by replacing six working-age benefits with one, improving incentives for people to work and to work more.