Select committee: Scottish Affairs Committee
Conclusion 118
Second Report - Welfare policy in Scotland
Published 23 Jun 2021
Addressed to Scotland Office
Scottish Affairs Committee Welfare policy in Scotland All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Should a claimant require money before the five week wait has been completed they can apply for an advance payment. This means a claimant can receive an advance worth the amount of their first estimated payment on Universal Credit.299 According to the Minister for Welfare Delivery, Will Quince MP, these advance payments can be made to claimants ‘usually within 24 hours, certainly within a small handful of days.’300 The advance payment needs to be paid back; however, a claimant does not pay interest on the payment—the total amount received as an advance is the same amount that is paid back to the DWP. The money is reclaimed by the DWP in the subsequent payments that the claimant receives from Universal Credit. As of, 12 April 2021, the conditions for advance payments have changed. Rather than pay back the advance over a 12-month period, claimants can now pay back their advance over a 24 month period if they prefer and the rate at which deductions of Universal Credit payments are made to pay for the advance has decreased from 30% to 25%.301
From: Scottish Affairs Committee, Second Report - Welfare policy in Scotland (HC 55), 23 June 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 19 November 2021 (deadline 23 August 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The UK Government "notes the Committee's recommendations" and responds to each in turn, accepting little of the report's welfare-policy proposals and referring several to the Scottish Government.
- On the £20 uplift and legacy benefits, it states "There was never any plan to extend the uplift to legacy benefits."
- On work allowances, it states it "has no plans to extend the work allowance to single adults".
- On Help to Claim funding, it "considers the existing resource to be sufficient", and says DWP agreed to fund Citizens Advice Scotland for another year, "up to 31 March 2022".
- On data sharing and Recommendations 2, 7 and 8, it says each data request "must be examined" by DWP as Data Controller, and treats several recommendations as "for the Scottish Government".