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.

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”