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Lone parents lose benefits cap challenges at supreme court Lone parents lose benefits cap challenge at supreme court
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Lone parents and their children have lost challenges against the government’s benefit cap at the UK’s highest court. The UK’s highest court has rejected a legal challenge to the benefit cap made by campaigners who argued that it discriminated against single parents with young children.
Supreme court justices, sitting in London on Wednesday, rejected the appeals in cases brought against the work and pensions secretary over the lawfulness of the measure by a majority of five to two. Supreme court justices decided by a majority of five to two to reject the appeal, although Lord Wilson, announcing the decision, said the impact of the cap was “undoubtedly harsh”.
Campaigners say the “discriminatory” reduced cap targets the wrong people and is not achieving its stated aims. A panel of judges were asked at a hearing last year to rule on whether the revised cap breached human rights laws. Lawyers representing 16 single parents with children under school age contended that they should be exempted from the cap because it unfairly penalised them for not working even though it was hard for them to find work or childcare, and that under wider benefit rules they were not expected to work because of their children’s age.
Lord Wilson, announcing the decision, described the legislation that introduced the revised cap as “tough”, and said the court had been faced with a difficult decision on the appeals. However, Wilson and four other judges found that the government’s decision not to exempt single parents with young children was “not manifestly without reasonable foundation” and did not breach human rights laws.
The evidence had persuaded all seven justices that the cap had a major impact on lone parents with children under school age because it was “particularly difficult for them to go out to work”. The ruling came as the cross-party Commons work and pensions committee revealed that the government had rejected its call to review to the benefit cap. The committee’s chair, Frank Field, said the effect of the cap was obvious and stark: “Families affected by the cap will, by definition, receive an income that is far short of what they need to house, feed, clothe and warm themselves and their children.”
The Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 provides that where families receive state benefits of a specified character of more than £20,000 a year, or £23,000 a year if living in London, the benefits should – subject to various exemptions – be capped at those levels. Carla Clarke, the head of strategic litigation at Child Poverty Action Group, which represented two single parents in the case, said the ruling was disappointing. “The UK’s highest court has upheld a law and a policy that is increasing poverty while failing to deliver on its principal aim of work incentivisation,” Clarke said.
One way of avoiding the cap is for the adults to go out to work: a lone parent must do so for 16 hours a week. But lawyers for lone parents said the cap had “drastically” reduced housing benefits, leaving many families unable to afford basic necessities to care for their children. The coalition government introduced the benefit cap in 2013, and it was lowered by the Conservatives in 2016, limiting total household benefits of those affected to £23,000 a year (£442 a week) in London and £20,000 (£385 a week) outside the capital. Those affected can escape the cap by taking up at least 16 hours a week of paid work.
It was argued they should be exempted because of the difficulty in finding work compatible with childcare responsibilities. Ministers said the policy would incentivise jobless people on benefits to move into work, save taxpayer money and restore public confidence in the benefits system. Wilson noted, however, that there was “sparse evidence” that it had achieved its aim, with just 5% of those capped moving into work to avoid it.
Lord Wilson said the effect on the parents and particularly on their children was “often harsh”. But in concluding that the appeals “must fail”, the majority considered, said Lord Wilson, that “we cannot go so far as to say that this application of the cap is manifestly without foundation”. Of the 68,000 households subjected to the cap in its post-2016 form up to August 2017, 72% were single parents, many of whom have faced benefit shortfalls of hundreds of pounds a month. About 37,000 were lone-parent households with a child under five, and 17,000 were lone parents with a child aged under two.
Lady Hale, ruling in favour of the five women who brought the appeals, said that “this seems to me a clear case where the weight of the evidence shows that a fair balance has not been struck between the interests of the community and the interests of the children concerned and their parents”. Lady Hale, who dissented from the majority ruling, said the small benefit savings from the cap would be offset by higher taxpayer spending elsewhere, including on rehousing families made homeless as a result of the cap, “as well as the costs resulting from the harm done to children by the disruption to their lives and education, as well as by living in poverty, in their early years”.
She declared that there was “unjustified discrimination” against lone parents of children under the age of five, and against children under five with lone parents. Lord Kerr, who also dissented, said the evidence in the case “decisively refuted” the government’s claim that the cap incentivised parents to find work. “One can only incentivise parents to obtain work if that is a viable option. The evidence in this case overwhelmingly shows that in most cases … this is simply not feasible.”
She said: “It seems to me that it has been comprehensively demonstrated by the mass of evidence... that the revised benefit cap is not suitable to achieving any of its declared aims.”
Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “Today’s decision is deeply disappointing, and is a blow to the many lone parents who are struggling to keep a roof over their children’s heads due to the benefit cap. Some families we work with are left with 50p a week towards their rent.
“The court heard extensive evidence that the cap is not meeting the government’s intended aims and is, in fact, causing severe hardship and destitution for families.”
BenefitsBenefits
WelfareWelfare
UK supreme court
Parents and parenting
Children
Poverty
Social exclusion
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