Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has made an assessment of the implications for her benefit cap policy of the findings of the Child Poverty Action Group in its report Capped in The New Year that an estimated 35,000 households will be capped at the start of 2021 as their grace period expired in December 2020 and a further 41,000 will be capped in the first few months of 2021, as their grace period expires from January to March 2021.

The information to undertake such an assessment is not currently available. The Benefit Cap quarterly statistics scheduled for publication later in the year will set out the volume of capped households for the periods in question. The relevant publication dates can be found here - https://www.gov.uk/search/research-and-statistics?keywords=benefit+AND+cap&content_store_document_type=upcoming_statistics&organisations%5B%5D=department-for-work-pensions&order=relevance

The benefit cap grace period is applied irrespective of whether or not the household has sufficient benefit income to be in scope for the cap. This ensures that a claimant will benefit from the grace period exemption should any change of circumstances bring them into the scope of the cap during that period. Many claimants who have the grace period applied will not be in scope of the cap when the grace period ends.