Emily Thornberry – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-12-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the report entitled, Estimating the Early Labour Market Impacts of Universal Credit, published by his Department in December 2015, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of (a) the finding reported on page 27, that the additional work undertaken by participants in the study who were claiming universal credit is likely to consist of relatively few hours at relatively low wages and (b) the findings of the independent peer review, published in Annex B of the report, that the differences between the earnings of people in receipt of universal credit and people in the control group were not satisfactory significant.

Priti Patel

The main and most robust finding in the report is that UC has a substantial impact on the chances of people moving into work after they make a new claim. UC claimants were 8 percentage points more likely to get a job within 270 days of claiming than equivalent new claims to JSA made at the same time in similar areas by similar individuals.

The report and the peer review also set out findings on earnings. These are consistent with the extra people in work and suggest that the policy is working by making it more worthwhile and easier for claimants to do small amounts of work. That is, UC ensures that all work pays.

Most of the findings on earnings are statistically significant. As the report explains, we will be able to improve these estimates over time as we get more data.