Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate his Department has made of the level of taper rate in universal credit that would mean that households were no worse off under universal credit than they were under tax credits.

The structures of Universal Credit and the legacy benefit systems are different meaning there will be households with higher notional entitlements, and households with lower notional entitlements whatever the taper rate. However, no household will see a decline in the benefit payments purely as a result of the introduction of Universal Credit

The single universal credit taper means that as people’s earnings increase, their Universal Credit payments reduce at a steady rate, so they can be sure they will always be better off working and earning more. We have also announced a 2% improvement in the Universal Credit single taper meaning more support for hardworking families.