Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to provide (a) compensation and (b) repayments to claimants who were underpaid employment and support allowance.

We are reviewing all those cases potentially affected and paying any arrears of past payments that are due. Our focus is on paying arrears to claimants in line with the primary legislation.

A Written Statement and Frequently Asked Question document providing further details on this issue was deposited in the House of Commons Library on Wednesday 17 October which can be found at http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/business-papers/commons/deposited-papers/.

In addition the Department published the latest statistical information on the estimates and timescales, which can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/esa-underpayments-forecast-numbers-affected-forecast-expenditure-and-progress-on-checking.