Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of the benefit cap on levels of homelessness in each year since its introduction.

In December 2014 DWP published a suite of evaluation reports available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/benefit-cap-evaluation. These found very little, if any, impact on homelessness as a direct result of the cap. The small number of capped households who have been evicted were noted by Local Authorities as having other reasons (beyond the cap) for rent arrears and also failing to engage with relevant services; they were considered intentionally homeless.