Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate on the number of Universal Credit claimants who previously served in the armed forces as of May 2022.

We are not able to make an estimate of the total number of Universal Credit claimants who previously served in the armed forces.

The previous answers to PQs 11554 and 16851 explained that for assessment periods ending in April 2022, DWP held a response for approximately 45% of UC claimants. Possible responses are “previously served”, “currently serving”, “never served”, or “prefer not to say”. From this data we have identified 33,800 UC claimants who have previously served in the Armed Forces. We will not make an estimate of the total number because the claimants for whom we have data may not be representative of all claimants. Nor can we provide further breakdowns by geography or any characteristics relating to the UC claim because of potential bias in the data.