Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the projected number of children under the age of five who live in households that will be affected by the benefits cap in each of the next five years.

The Department does not hold any projections of the number of children under the age of 5 affected by the benefit cap.

To collate and add on the additional data for all children under 5 and quality assure the figures to answer this PQ would incur disproportionate cost.

The Department published ad-hoc statistics in July 2017 which estimated that 56,000 households fall into the scope of the lower benefit cap in 2016/17. (Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/benefit-cap-estimated-impact-on-parents-by-age-of-youngest-child, Table 1, Estimated number of households in scope for the lower benefit cap prior to its introduction, by family type and age of youngest child: 2016/17).

This does not take account of behavioural changes where people make the choice to move into employment or increase their hours of work or taken other action to move out of scope for the cap.

The Department published an Impact Assessment on the introduction of the lower benefit cap in August 2016. (Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/548741/welfare-reform-and-work-act-impact-assessment-for-the-benefit-cap.pdf