Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment his Department has made of how much better off claimants of universal credit will be as a result of the reduction in the taper rate and increase in the work allowance announced in the Autumn Budget 2021.

The government announced at Budget that it is now taking further action to make work pay for low income working households on Universal Credit by allowing them to keep more of what they earn. The changes to Universal Credit will mean that nearly 2 million households will keep, on average, around an extra £1,000 on an annual basis by 1 December. This is effectively a tax cut of around £2.2 billion next year for some of the lowest paid in society.