Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when his Department plans to close down the IT systems for legacy benefits after the roll-out of universal credit.

Once Universal Credit is fully rolled out and claimants have been successfully migrated from their previous benefits in accordance with our published plan, existing systems will be decommissioned if they have no further utility. However, the majority of the legacy benefit IT systems also support provision of other benefits and may therefore have a life beyond that of the full introduction of Universal Credit.