Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans there are to monitor the effect of the lowered benefit cap on the well-being of children affected by the lowering of that cap.

We are committed to monitoring the impacts of our policies and to establishing the extent to which they have met their objectives and are therefore developing plans to commission an independent external evaluation of the impact of the new, lower, tiered benefit cap and the new exemptions. The evaluation will aim to better understand claimants’ behaviours and attitudes to looking for work; how local services have been affected by the change in the cap and how organisations such as local authorities are working with capped claimants.

The Department will also continue to produce Official Statistics on the benefit cap on a quarterly basis allowing frequent monitoring on the number of households affected by the policy. The statistics cover:

• Cumulative and point-in-time statistics on the number of households capped in Great Britain, regional and local authority level by household type, number of children and amount of the benefit cap.
• Great Britain and regional level off-flow statistics from the benefit and by reason of the off-flow.
• Further breakdowns are also available by local authority and Parliamentary Constituency.