Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of new universal credit claimants have had to wait longer than five weeks for initial payment in each month since January 2018.

The proportion of Universal Credit new claimants who waited more than five weeks from their payment due date for their initial Universal Credit payment is in the table below.

In many cases where full payment is not made on time, it is due to unresolved issues such as: claimants not accepting their Claimant Commitment or passing identity checks, or having outstanding verification issues, such as housing costs and self-employed earnings.

We have taken steps to improve verification processes. For example, we have listened to feedback and built processes into the system to make it easier and quicker for people to verify their housing costs, for example through the landlord portal.

Notes:

These results can change retrospectively as further information is received and is from our internal management data.

*Initial % of paid claims that received some payment