Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the benefit cap on children's physical and mental health outcomes, including nutrition, stress and access to early intervention services.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The benefit cap aims to incentivise work as, where possible, it is in the best interest of children to be in working households. Living in a working family has a positive impact on children’s educational attainment, mental health, and long-term aspirations. The Government is driving forward labour market interventions that will deliver a step-change in support and help parents to enter and progress in work.
Alongside employment support, the department supports families in work through an exemption from the benefit cap for households earning at least £846 each month. There is also protection for the most vulnerable as those who are caring or are severely disabled are exempt from the benefit cap.
The Government is investing in the future of our children and introducing a fundamental change by removing the two child limit on Universal Credit and therefore reinstating support for all children. This comes alongside a package of measures that will drive down working poverty by raising the minimum wage, creating more secure jobs by strengthening rights at work, and expanding free childcare.
Furthermore, the Government is committed to rolling out Best Start Family Hubs in every local authority by April 2026 and creating up to 1,000 hubs across the country by the end of 2028. Family Hubs will offer universal, open access support for families and connect them to other local services such as healthcare, welfare, early education, and housing.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the existing exemptions from the benefit cap for households with disabled children, including whether those exemptions reflect the additional costs associated with disability.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government recognises that households with disabled children have additional costs and that is reflected in the support that is available for these families.
For example, Disability Living Allowance (DLA) is available as a contribution to the extra costs associated with being disabled to those under the age of 16 who, due to a disability or health condition have mobility issues and/or care needs which are substantially in excess of a child the same age without the disability or health condition. Universal Credit also provides an additional amount for disabled children.
Households in receipt of disability and/or caring benefits, including child DLA, are exempt from the benefit cap. This reflects the impact a disability and/or caring responsibilities may have on a household's ability to work and earn enough to meet the benefit cap work exemption of at least £846 each month. Additionally, disability and caring benefits do not count towards the benefit cap.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to the long-term consequences of the benefit cap on the life chances of children, including future employment prospects, health inequalities and intergenerational poverty.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government recognises that growing up in a working household helps to tackle the long-term impacts of poverty on a child’s future health, employment, and life chances. The benefit cap aims to incentivise work and exemptions to the cap are in place for households in work earning at least £846 each month, rising to £881 each month from April 2026.
The Child Poverty Strategy kickstarts action and ambition over the next ten years to respond to the current crisis of child poverty now while delivering longer term change to fundamentally fix the structural drivers of child poverty.
The Government is investing in the future of our children and is removing the two child limit in Universal Credit in April 2026. This will lift 450,000 children out of poverty in the final year of this parliament and is the most cost-effective and quickest way of reducing child poverty and the impacts that child poverty can bring.
In addition, the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 places a duty on the Secretary of State to report annually on the life chances of children in non-working households and educational attainment as two main factors leading to child poverty. These were last released on 27 March: “Workless households and educational attainment statutory indicators 2025 - GOV.UK”
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the benefit cap on demand for local authority hardship support, including discretionary housing payments, and how this affects the ability of councils to support children who are in need.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In the financial year 2024/25, 9% of Discretionary Housing Payment (DHP) expenditure was recorded by Local Authorities in England and Wales as related to the Benefit Cap (9%) and 7% of expenditure being used on a combination of welfare reforms (including the Benefit Cap, Local Housing Allowance and Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy). This is taken from the DWP publication “Use of Discretionary Housing Payments: analysis of end-of-year returns from local authorities, data for April 2024 to March 2025”.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have conducted an equality analysis on the impact of the benefit cap on children in households with protected characteristics, including lone parent families and families from minority ethnic backgrounds.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As part of the Department’s compliance with the Equality Act 2010 and the Public Sector Equality Duty, assessments of the impacts of the benefit cap policy on protected characteristics of people in capped households are undertaken to support with legislative changes.
The government is committed to monitoring the impacts of the benefit cap and publishes quarterly statistics on the number of households capped. The most recent statistics were published in December 2025 for the quarter to August 2025.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of their childcare support policy on child poverty in single-parent households; and what consideration they have given to reforming childcare support to reflect the financial constraints faced by families with one member in paid employment.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Poverty scars the lives and life chances of our children. Tackling child poverty is at the heart of this government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and give every child the best start in life.
The Child Poverty Strategy sets out the steps we are taking to reduce child poverty in the short term, as well as putting in place the building blocks we need to change the course we’re on and create long-term change.
The Government is investing in the future of our children by removing the two child limit on Universal Credit, reinstating support for all children in the household. This comes alongside a package of measures that will drive down working poverty by raising the minimum wage, creating more secure jobs by strengthening rights at work, and expanding free childcare.
We recognise that access to high quality, affordable childcare is essential for parents to be able to work. We will increase Universal Credit childcare support to help parents in work, with eligible parents receiving up to £737.06 in UC childcare support for each additional child beyond the first. We will also streamline the process for getting support with upfront childcare costs.
Changes to the childcare cost caps will occur during the 2026-27 financial year, subject to the laying of the relevant legislation and alterations to the UC service.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of any relationship between the benefit cap and demand for statutory children's services, including child protection referrals and family support interventions.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No assessment has been made by my department.
Our Best Start in Life Strategy, published in July 2025, sets out how we will expand and strengthen family service and improve the accessibility, affordability and quality of early years education and school-aged childcare in England.
From September 2025, 30 hours of Government-funded childcare is now available to eligible working parents of children from nine months old, enabling thousands more children to start school ready to learn (and giving parents greater freedom over jobs and working hours).
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the benefit cap on (1) access to early years provision for children, (2) school readiness, and (3) early developmental outcomes.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No assessment has been made by my department.
Our Best Start in Life Strategy, published in July 2025, sets out how we will expand and strengthen family service and improve the accessibility, affordability and quality of early years education and school-aged childcare in England.
From September 2025, 30 hours of Government-funded childcare is now available to eligible working parents of children from nine months old, enabling thousands more children to start school ready to learn (and giving parents greater freedom over jobs and working hours).
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government how the interests of children are assessed in the design and ongoing operation of the benefit cap; and what mechanisms exist to ensure that the welfare of children is considered when policy is being decided.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The benefit cap aims to incentivise work as, where possible, it is in the best interest of children to be in working households. Living in a working family has a positive impact on children’s educational attainment, mental health, and long-term aspirations. The Government is driving forward labour market interventions that will deliver a step-change in support and help parents to enter and progress in work.
The Government is committed to monitoring the impacts of the benefit cap and publishes quarterly statistics on the number of households capped. The most recent statistics were published in December 2025 for the quarter to August 2025.
The Government continues to review research from and engages with a range of organisations representing children and families, to ensure the social security system provides the support people need.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment the Child Poverty Taskforce has made of the potential benefits of statutory child poverty reduction targets.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Poverty Taskforce continues its urgent work to publish the Child Poverty Strategy and is exploring all available levers across government to deliver an enduring reduction in child poverty in this parliament, as part of a 10-year Strategy for lasting change.
As set out in the publication of 23 October ‘Tackling Child Poverty: Developing our Strategy’, the Taskforce is exploring a range of metrics and will make decisions alongside the publication of the strategy. This work will be guided by the leading, and internationally recognised, measure of poverty - Relative Poverty After Housing Costs (the proportion of families with below 60% of the median income after housing costs are deducted).
Our metrics must also reflect the experience of poverty in households across the UK and the urgent need to focus on those children experiencing the most severe and acute forms of poverty. The Taskforce will consider how best to measure this as the strategy develops, including through our work on the material deprivation measure following the recent review of the material deprivation survey questions carried out by the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics and Political Science.