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 of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what action they are taking to reduce regional differences in life expectancy; and what steps they are taking to account for housing, employment and environmental factors in health policy.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to increasing the amount of time people spend in good health and to preventing premature deaths, with an ambitious commitment to halve the healthy life expectancy gap between the richest and poorest regions.
Our 10-Year Health Plan for England sets out a reimagined service designed to tackle inequalities in both access and outcomes, as well as to give everyone, no matter who they are or where they come from, the means to engage with the health service on their own terms.
The 10-Year Health Plan and the Environmental Improvement Plan set out how the Government will take action to reduce exposure to harmful emissions of air pollutants. This includes action on domestic burning, on which the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have recently launched a consultation.
The 10-Year Health Plan also sets out actions to address poor quality housing and improve the standard of rented homes, alongside £15 billion of investment announced in the Warm Homes Plan. £5 billion of this will be targeted at low-income and fuel poor households. This will help to make homes warmer, more comfortable, and more energy-efficient, which in turn will improve health and reduce health inequalities.
Further to this, the Government recognises that good-quality employment is an important determinant of good health. Sir Charlie Mayfield has submitted the Keep Britain Working review, which highlights how crucial it is to support people to stay healthy and in work.
In partnership with the Department for Business and Trade and the Department for Work and Pensions, we are rapidly translating Sir Charlie’s key recommendations into action.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what indicators they use to measure progress in reducing health inequalities; and how those metrics inform policy and funding decisions.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
It is a priority for the Government to increase the amount of time people spend in good health and prevent premature deaths, with a vision of ensuring that all individuals, regardless of background or location, live longer, healthier lives.
We remain committed to reducing the gap in healthy life expectancy (HLE) between the richest and poorest, an ambitious commitment that shows the Government is serious about tackling health inequalities and addressing the social determinants of health. Indicators to monitor progress in health inequalities are measured in key data outcomes, such as the life expectancy estimates for England and sub-national areas, produced by the Office for National Statistics.
The Government bases decisions on a robust evidence base. For example, we know that the Carr-Hill formula is considered outdated, and evidence suggests that general practices (GPs) serving in deprived parts of England receive on average 9.8% less funding per needs adjusted patient than those in less deprived communities, despite having greater health needs and significantly higher patient-to-GP ratios. This is why we are currently reviewing the formula to ensure that resources are targeted where they are most needed.
We are targeting key metrics such as the HLE gap to enable cross-Government action on primary prevention such as regulation of tobacco, controlling air pollution, and tackling poverty. We also support NHS England’s CORE20PLUS5 approach which targets action to reduce health inequalities in the most deprived 20% of the population and improve outcomes for groups that experience the worst access, experience, and outcomes within the National Health Service.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what analysis they have undertaken of the distribution of healthcare professionals across regions; and how workforce planning reflects areas of greatest health needs.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are a range of sources that present data detailing how staff working in National Health Service roles are distributed across England. These published sources include, but are not limited to, information on the trust and region of staff employed by NHS trusts and integrated care boards, information on vacancies in the NHS, and information on general medical practice staff. This information is available on the NHS.UK website.
The forthcoming 10 Year Workforce Plan will set out further detail on how we will ensure the NHS has the right staff, in the right places, to deliver high quality care for patients when they need it.
Workforce planning for medical staff already means that Medical Foundation and Specialty training posts are allocated across the United Kingdom to support workforce needs, including in rural and hard to recruit areas. While some locations have historically found recruitment more challenging, we now have fewer vacancies in the Foundation Programme. NHS England is working with a number of medical schools to pilot the allocation of students directly to their local foundation schools.
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).