Mansfield families having their benefits capped despite being not expected to work

Charity Child Poverty Action Group said the figures demonstrate the flaws in the Government's approach to capping benefits, which is designed to encourage more people into work.

The cap limits the Universal Credit of households who earn less than £658 a month. Claimants escape the cap if they can earn more.

Figures provided by the Department for Work and Pensions show there were 108 families having their benefits capped in the Mansfield constituency as of last August.

Of these, 47 of them were not expected to be in work by the DWP, either due to health problems or having caring duties – often for very young children.

Another 23 families were already in work, but did not earn enough to reach the threshold for the cap to be lifted.

In Mansfield, the benefit cap cuts the Universal Credit of affected families by an average of £194 a month.

The 108 families affected had 380 children, and included 85 single-parent families.

The figures were provided to the Child Poverty Action Group through Freedom of Information requests, which found more than one in three families across England, Scotland and Wales in receipt of Universal Credit are having their benefits capped while not being expected to work – 37,970 in total.

Alison Garnham, CPAG chief executive, said the Universal Credit cap should be completely removed.

She said: “Our data demonstrates the fallacy that the benefit cap is a work incentive. How can it be when so many households caught by it are unable to take a job because of young children? It doesn’t incentivise work, it leaves children hungry. The Government’s position on the cap is incoherent. It must be removed before it harms more young lives.”

The Government recently announced the benefit cap will be uprated in April by 10.1 per cent, in line with inflation. This will mean capped households can gain from annual benefit uprating for the first time since the cap was implemented in 2013.

But the benefit cap has not increased since it was introduced in 2013 and, in 2016, it was lowered.

CPAG said after April’s uprating, the cap will still be £225 a month lower in real terms than it was in 2016, due to eing frozen in previous years.

A DWP spokesman said there were now 200,000 fewer children in absolute poverty after housing costs, compared with 2019-2020, and that many of the most vulnerable were exempt from the benefit cap.

He said: “From next month the annual benefit cap for a single parent will be more than £25,000 in London and £22,000 elsewhere in Great Britain. It balances fairness for taxpayers with providing a vital safety net and is designed to provide a strong work incentive, by ensuring that work pays.

“Many of the most vulnerable claimants – including those who are in receipt of Universal Credit because of a disability or health condition that prevents them from working - are exempt from the cap.”