{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/social-security-miscellaneous-amendments-regulations-2026/note",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/social-security-miscellaneous-amendments-regulations-2026/note.json",
  "legislation": "uksi/2026/1063",
  "legislation_title": "The Social Security (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2026",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/social-security-miscellaneous-amendments-regulations-2026",
  "path": "note",
  "kind": "note",
  "number": null,
  "heading": "Explanatory note",
  "text": "(This note is not part of the Regulations)\nThese Regulations make amendments to the Social Security (Recovery of Benefits) Regulations 1997 (S.I. 1997/2205), the State Pension Credit Regulations 2002 (S.I. 2002/1792), the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006 (S.I. 2006/213), the Housing Benefit (Persons who have attained the qualifying age for state pension credit) Regulations 2006 (S.I. 2006/214), the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations 2008 (S.I. 2008/794), the Social Security (Recovery of Benefits) (Lump Sum Payments) Regulations 2008 (S.I. 2008/1596), the Universal Credit Regulations 2013 (S.I. 2013/376), the Social Security (Overpayments and Recovery) Regulations 2013 (S.I. 2013/384), the Personal Independence Payment (Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2013 (S.I. 2013/387) (“the PIP Transitional Regulations”), the Universal Credit (Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2014 (S.I. 2014/1230) and the Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment and Employment and Support Allowance (Amendment) Regulations 2026 (S.I. 2026/395).\nRegulation 1 provides for citation, commencement and extent.\nRegulations 2 and 7 amend respectively the Social Security (Recovery of Benefits) Regulations 1997 and the Social Security (Recovery of Benefits) (Lump Sum Payments) Regulations 2008 to exempt payments under the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme established by the Irish Government under the Irish Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Act 2023 (No. 20 of 2023 of the Acts of the Oireachtas of the Republic of Ireland) from compensation recovery pursuant to the Social Security (Recovery of Benefits) Act 1997 (c. 27).\nRegulations 3, 4, 5 and 6 amend respectively the State Pension Credit Regulations 2002, the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006, the Housing Benefit (Persons who have attained the qualifying age for state pension credit) Regulations 2006 and the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations 2008. In particular, they amend as appropriate provisions regarding which payments are to be disregarded as income and capital for the purposes of calculating entitlement to benefits in order to create new disregards. The disregards cover payments made under the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme.\nRegulation 3 also amends regulation 5 of the State Pension Credit Regulations 2002, which determines whether a person is treated as being or not being a member of the same household as the claimant, including while they are temporarily absent from Great Britain. Paragraph (1D) of regulation 5 provides for a category of permitted temporary absence outside Great Britain applying to persons who, during such a period of absence, were in a country or territory immediately before His Majesty’s Government provided public information to advise British nationals to leave that country or territory or arranged the evacuation of British nationals from that country or territory. The amendment makes it clear that this category of permitted absence applies only where the person is abroad pursuant to other temporary absence provisions when the public information was issued or the evacuation began.\nRegulation 8 amends the Universal Credit Regulations 2013 to clarify that a claimant’s employed earnings for universal credit purposes are not to be reduced by reference to any mileage allowance relief paid through the tax system, and to introduce new disregards for payments made under the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme.\nRegulation 9 amends regulation 14 of the Social Security (Overpayments and Recovery) Regulations 2013 so that the rate of recovery by deduction from state pension credit for overpayments of the prescribed benefits resulting from an admission of fraud, a fraud conviction or an administrative penalty as an alternative to prosecution is increased from 5 times 5 per cent. (25%) to 8 times 5 per cent. (40%). Regulation 9 corrects a defect in the Social Security (Overpayments and Recovery) Amendment Regulations 2015 (S.I. 2015/499) which should have contained the amendment.\nRegulation 10 amends regulation 13 of the PIP Transitional Regulations, which makes provision for ending an award of disability living allowance (DLA) where a transfer claimant (as defined in regulation 2 of those Regulations) fails to comply with requirements connected with a personal independence payment (PIP) claim. Regulation 13 of the PIP Transitional Regulations applies in two scenarios. The first is where a ‘negative determination’ is made under regulation 8 or 9 of the Social Security (Personal Independence Payment) Regulations 2013 (S.I. 2013/377) because the claimant has failed to provide information or evidence or has failed to attend or participate in a required consultation. The second is where there is a determination that the claimant has failed to comply with a requirement imposed under regulation 35 or 37 of the Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment, Jobseeker's Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance (Claims and Payments) Regulations 2013 (S.I. 2013/380) in connection with a PIP claim. Regulation 10 inserts a new paragraph (1A) into regulation 13 of the PIP Transitional Regulations. The new paragraph provides that where it is determined that the claimant had good reason for the failure giving rise to a determination under regulation 13(1), that determination is treated as not having been made and the claimant’s award of DLA is reinstated as if the determination had never been made. This applies regardless of whether entitlement to PIP is determined as part of the same revision, appeal or other proceedings. Regulation 10 also removes regulation 13(2) and makes consequential amendments to regulation 17. The effect is that successful good reason claimants are treated under the same legislative framework and are subject to the same DLA run-on and PIP commencement provisions as other transfer claimants, regardless of how or when entitlement to PIP is determined.\nRegulation 11 provides that when calculating the adjustment of a transitional element under regulation 55 of the Universal Credit (Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2014, if the LCW element or the LCWRA element replaces the carer element, or if the carer element replaces either the LCW element or the LCWRA element, the “relevant increase” is the net increase (if any) between the two amounts.\nRegulation 12 amends the extent provision in the Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment and Employment and Support Allowance (Amendment) Regulations 2026 to clarify that regulation 3 extends to England and Wales only.\nA full impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument as no, or no significant, impact on the private, voluntary or public sector is foreseen.",
  "extent": null,
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2026/1063/note",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-10-28T20:54:16.441436+00:00"
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
}