Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people applied (a) successfully and (b) unsuccessfully for short term benefit advance or advance payments in the most recent 12 months for which data are available.

Around 60% of eligible new claims to Universal Credit received an advance in October 2018. Subject to some fluctuation, this has been broadly consistent for every month for which the data has been requested.

There were 98,250 Short Term Benefit Advances for Employment and Support Allowance, Incapacity Benefit, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Income Support awarded to individual national insurance numbers in Great Britain between January and December 2017. On the number of applications, this information is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.