Source · Select Committees · Women and Equalities Committee
Recommendation 14
14
Rejected
Paragraph: 104
The Government does not know enough about how Universal Credit is operating for different groups.
Recommendation
The Government does not know enough about how Universal Credit is operating for different groups. The Government does not know, for example, how many BAME claimants there are and if they are negatively affected by the Universal Credit application system. We recommend that the Government should make the equality survey that is a part of the Universal Credit application mandatory for applicants and claimants so that the ethnicity data of applicants and claimants can be improved.
Government response summary AI-generated
The government rejects making the equality survey mandatory for Universal Credit applicants, stating that the Department for Work and Pensions lacks the legal power and that primary legislation would be required.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Paragraph Reference:
104
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government · verbatim extract
Rejected
The Department for Work and Pensions does not have the legal power to mandate that claimants provide ethnicity data as part of their benefit claim. Primary legislation would be required for this. Other, more general, data processing requirements under UK General Data Protection Regulation would also need to be considered.
Read the full response on Parliament ↗