Universal Credit: Children
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Department's Research and analysis paper entitled Removing the two-child limit on Universal Credit, whether the calculation that the removal of the two-child limit will lift 450,000 children out of poverty has taken in to account how many of those households will now be impacted by the benefit cap.
Answered by Sir Stephen Timms
The Department for Work and Pensions’ Policy Simulation Model (PSM) was used to model the impact of the removal of the two-child limit on Universal Credit. The PSM uses household characteristics, caseload forecasts and benefit rules to estimate policy impacts for each year, currently up to and including FYE 2031.
It is estimated that there will be 450,000 fewer children in relative poverty after housing costs in the final year of parliament (FYE 2030) as a result of the removal of the two-child limit within Universal Credit, compared to baseline projections. This estimate takes full account of the benefit cap, which is modelled in both the baseline and policy projections.
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