MORE than half of universal credit claimants have money taken from their benefits by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to pay debts, new figures revealed yesterday.

In October last year, 53 per cent of claimants had cash automatically deducted to pay for bills, rent arrears, council tax and child maintenance, according to a parliamentary written question.

The figures show that 532,000 universal credit claimants had some payments deducted in that month under the government’s third-party payments scheme.

Around 6,000 claimants had 40 per cent cut from their benefits, while 129,000 claimants had deductions of between 31 and 40 per cent.

October’s statistics show a sharp rise in deductions compared with figures obtained by a freedom of information request in August 2018 by the Guardian, which showed that one-third of claimants at that time saw money deducted.

In May 2017, just one in 10 claimants had their payments deducted.

A DWP spokeswoman said: “When claimants have housing or utility arrears, we make deductions from their benefits to help pay off debts and keep them in their homes.

“Safeguards are in place to ensure that deductions are affordable.”