Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment her Department has made of trends in the level of Universal Credit childcare costs.

No such assessment has been made.

The Universal Credit Childcare element expenditure and forecast statistics can be found in row 18 of the ‘Universal Credit and equivalent’ tab, published here: Benefit expenditure and caseload tables 2025 - GOV.UK

Further information, including Universal Credit childcare element statistics and supplementary data tables, are also published and available here: Universal Credit statistics, 29 April 2013 to 10 July 2025 - GOV.UK