Benefit Cap: Review Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateBaroness Lister of Burtersett
Main Page: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Lister of Burtersett's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(2 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberTo ask Her Majesty’s Government when they propose to conduct the next statutory review of the benefit cap.
There is a statutory duty to review the benefit cap levels once in each Parliament, unless an early election is called. As such, the review will happen at the appropriate time, yet to be determined by the Secretary of State, which must currently be by December 2024.
My Lords, it is exactly five years since the cap on how much benefit can be received was reduced to its current level. Given that the numbers affected remain well above pandemic levels, and the mounting evidence of the cap’s contribution to deep child poverty, food insecurity, homelessness, mental health problems and difficulties faced by domestic abuse survivors, will the Government undertake now to do the review required by law—as the Minister said—and address in it the evidence of hardship and the growing calls for the cap to be abolished, including from the noble Lord, Lord Freud, yesterday in this House, who called it an “excrescence”?
I am afraid I cannot commit to the Secretary of State reviewing the benefit cap now. I note the points the noble Baroness has made and continues to make, but for the Government the benefit cap provides a strong work incentive, and we think the national cap of earnings at £24,000 and £28,000 in London is a fair system at the moment. However, I will take her points back to the department.