Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Sherlock on 20th February (HL14368), what percentage of those claiming Universal Credit had an immigration status recorded as "other" or have no immigration status recorded in (1) January 2025, and (2) January 2026.

The percentage of people on Universal Credit by immigration status for January 2025 and January 2026 is shown in the table below. The proportion of Universal Credit claimants with an immigration status recorded as ‘other’ or where there is no immigration status recorded on the digital system either stayed broadly the same or decreased in January 2026 compared with January 2025.

Table 1. Percentage of people on Universal Credit by Immigration status, Great Britain, January 2025 and 2026

Source: DWP Universal Credit - Immigration Status and Nationality statistics

Note:

1. Figures are rounded to 1 decimal place.
2. “Other” includes those no longer receiving Universal Credit payments, ineligible partners of an eligible Universal Credit claimant and claimants who have their decision overturned at Mandatory Reconsideration or Appeal stage.
3. “No immigration status recorded on digital systems” includes cases where a recorded immigration status is not held on DWP administrative data. While every effort is made to collect data to the highest quality, as with all administrative data it is dependent on the accuracy of information entered into the system. Checks are made throughout the process from collection of the data to producing the statistics, but some data entry or processing errors may filter through to the data used to produce the statistics.