Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of allocating funding to enable the work allowance threshold for universal credit to be set at its pre-2015 level.

The 2015 Summer Budget announced a measure to reduce and simplify work allowances, supporting the Government’s intention to move from a low wage, high tax society to a high wage, low tax society. This measure protects those on the very lowest income, while ensuring that incentives to progress in work remain and are improved for those taken off the benefits system altogether.

Work allowances for 2018-19 rose in line with the Consumer Price Index (3%).