Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the impact of the universal credit taper rate reduction on household budgets.

The reduction in the taper rate, together with an increase in the work allowances, means 1.9m households will keep, on average, around an extra £1,000 a year. These changes represent an effective tax cut for low income working households in receipt of Universal Credit, worth £2.2 billion a year in 2022-23, and will allow working households to keep more of what they earn and strengthen incentives to move into, and progress, in work.