Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the reasons for which the jobseeker's allowance claimant rate is falling faster than the unemployment rate; and what estimate he has made of the proportion of people eligible to claim jobseeker's allowance in 2013-14 who did not do so.

It is not appropriate to consider Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) in isolation because the roll out of Universal Credit (UC) means growing numbers now claim UC rather than JSA.

The Office for National Statistics publishes claimant count figures that combine JSA and those claiming UC who are not in work. This does not show the claimant rate falling faster than the unemployment rate. In fact over the past quarter the claimant rate has remained flat while the unemployment rate has fallen 0.3 percentage points.

Estimates of the take-up of income-related benefits in 2013-14 have already been published and are available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/437501/ir-benefits-take-up-main-report-2013-14.pdf