Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the (a) planned spending is for and (b) expected number of beneficiaries are of Universal Support in each of the next five years.

The total budget for Universal Support is £1.4 billion which will provide up to 400,000 places during the lifetime of the programme. Once fully rolled out it aims to provide 100,000 places a year. Detailed planning and preparation is underway to determine how places will build to that maximum annual volume.