“From: Lawrence Steve STRATEGY WORKING AGE BENEFITS UC  
Subject: RE: Query regarding SDP Gateway
Date: 19 March 2019 at 11:00:51 GMT
Cc: Young Nina STRATEGY WORKING AGE BENEFITS UC  
…
Nina is off this week, so she has passed your email on to me to provide a response. I’ve provided some info below and added a response (in red) to your questions.

The SDP Gateway regulations state:
Restriction on claims for universal credit by persons entitled to a severe disability premium
4A.  No claim may be made for universal credit on or after 16th January 2019 by a single claimant who, or joint claimants either of whom— 
(a)is, or has been within the past month, entitled to an award of an existing benefit that includes a severe disability premium; and
(b)in a case where the award ended during that month, has continued to satisfy the conditions for eligibility for a severe disability premium.”

The issue / question you refer to below has arisen previously and the legal advice we have had confirms that ‘a person entitled to a benefit that includes the SDP, includes a person who meet[sic] the conditions for SDP but have[sic] not yet received it’.

So, if someone is not receiving the SDP as part of their legacy benefit (e.g. Income Support, Jobseekers Allowance (income based), Employment & Support Allowance (income related) and Housing Benefit), but following a change of circumstances that requires them to make a new claim to Universal Credit (as this replaces the above benefits), it is identified during the course of dealing with this change of circumstances that the claimant should be receiving SDP, as they meet all of the qualifying conditions but for some reason this hasn’t been put into payment, then these claimants will be prevented from claiming UC by the SDP Gateway and will be able to stay on / claim a legacy benefit, and the SDP will be added to their claim. These claimants will then only be moved to UC by the DWP as part of the managed migration exercise as some point in the future and will receive transitional protection.

Thanks
Steve
Steve Lawrence | Policy Group | Universal Credit Policy | Working Age Benefits Directorate | Department for Work and Pensions”