Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to assist claimants of universal credit claimants submit evidence of their (a) childcare and (b) housing costs.

Since February 2018, Universal Credit claimants have been able to upload digital copies of their childcare cost receipts or invoices through their online Universal Credit account. We also offer extra support to enable parents to pay upfront childcare costs or deposits; for example, claimants may be eligible to receive an advance of their future Universal Credit entitlement, which is interest free.

In 2017 we started rolling out a ‘landlord portal’ to social landlords to make it easier and quicker to verify people’s housing costs. We have also listened to feedback and built processes into the system to improve verification for tenants in the private rented sector.