Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many pensioners have been required to make a claim for universal credit rather than pension credit because their partner has not yet reached pension age.

In 2012, Parliament voted to modernise the welfare system to ensure that couples, where one person is of working age and the other person is over State Pension age, access support, where it is needed, through the working age benefit regime. This replaces the previous system whereby the household could access either Pension Credit and pension-age Housing Benefit, or working-age benefits.

Pension Credit is designed to provide long-term support for pensioner households who are no longer economically active. It is not designed to support working age claimants. This change will ensure that the same work incentives apply to the younger partner as apply to other people of the same age, and taxpayer support is directed where it is needed most.

Between 15 May 2019, when the mixed age couples policy was implemented, and mid

August 2019, there were 1,800 new claims to Universal Credit where one member of the couple was above State Pension age and the other below (a “mixed age couple”).

Notes:

1. This is the number of couples/new claims (rounded to nearest 100) and not the number of people.

2. The data is up to mid-August as this is the latest available data.

3. The data is from the DWP management information which has been collected for internal departmental use only and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard.