Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to relation to the Minister for Welfare Delivery's correspondence of 21 December 2020 to the Chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee on automating the identification of affected claimants following the Johnson case at the Court of Appeal, what the cost is of the automated fix; and whether the automated fix will require a full rebuild of the universal credit system.

No estimates have been made for the cost of an automated approach and there are no plans for this as each instance can be complex.

The Universal Credit (Earned Income) Amendment Regulations 2020 were laid in October 2020, so for cases affected by this issue, monthly earnings can be reallocated to another assessment period. To support this, we have designed a tool which interacts with the Universal Credit Service to allow the redistribution of earnings where appropriate, with guidance having been issued to staff to ensure that where an issue is identified, the correct remedial action is taken.

Automated identification of affected claimants is expected to be implemented in early 2021. This will allow us to proactively correct Universal Credit awards before they are paid without the claimant needing to raise the issue.