Benefits cap to be slashed from £26,000 to £20,000 per family: Claimants told 'find jobs or your handouts will be cut'
- New benefits cap will come into force this autumn following Tory reforms
- DWP secretary warns unemployed must make finding work a priority
- 22,000 people have stopped claiming since cap was introduced in 2013
- The new cap was announced by George Osborne in his Budget last year
The Work and Pensions secretary Stephen Crabb has warned that benefit recipients need to do everything they can to find work after it was announced that the cap will be cut to £20,000
Parents of families who rely on benefit handouts are being warned they must find work as their claiming limit will be slashed this autumn.
At the moment, families can receive up to £26,000 a year in benefits but that total is set to be cut to £23,000 in London and £20,000 in the rest of the country under new Conservative reforms.
And last night the Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb warned that people need to do everything they can to find work.
He said: 'We are going further to ensure the amount that out-of-work people can claim better reflects the circumstances of many hard-working families.
'With the new cap coming into force in the autumn, now is the time for people to take action'.
The department yesterday published new figures on benefits claimants showing that the number of people claiming has dropped.
22,000 people have stopped claiming benefits since the £26,000 cap was introduced in summer 2013.
A further 11,500 are not claiming as much as they did.
George Osborne announced the new cap in his Autumn Statement, following through on promises the Tories made to cut the welfare bill in their election manifesto last year.
At the time, he said: 'It is not fair that people out of work can earn more than people in work so we are going to cut the benefit cap, as we said in our manifesto, to £23,000 in London - it will be lower in the rest of the country.
'We have got to have a welfare system that is fair to those who need it but also fair to those who pay for it.'
Treasury figures show the saving resulting from the benefit cap is far from insignificant. The existing cap is saving £185million a year and the new one will save an additional half a billion a year by 2020.
Since the £26,000 benefits cap was introduced in 2013, 22,000 people have found work and have stopped claiming, according to new figures
The cap is designed to ensure that no family on benefits can claim more than the net income of the average working family.
The DWP figures show that people affected by benefits capping are 41 per cent more likely to find work than those who are entitled to less than the cap.
Households where one adult is working, or one is in receipt of disability benefits, will be exempt from the new cap.
The cap has proved controversial as the majority of households that have had their benefits limited include children and more than half are single-parent families. Nearly half of those affected – 45 per cent – are in London where rents are highest.
Mr Crabb warned that for families claiming benefits to avoid the £6,000 cut, they must begin searching for work immediately, reported The Daily Express.
Jeremy Corbyn has previously said that households should be able to claim limitless amounts in benefits
It comes after Jeremy Corbyn said he believed that the cap should be scrapped altogether.
The Labour leader said households should be able to claim limitless amounts in benefits – and that imposing a cap has led to 'social cleansing'.
Instead, he said government should impose 'rent regulation', a policy last used in this country 30 years ago and associated with hard-Left governments around the world.
Of capping plans, he said: 'You can't put a figure on it. In the past there was no cap on it ... the amount of money saved in the overall budget from the household benefit cap is actually quite small.'
He added: 'My view is the government should introduce rent regulation.
David Cameron said last year that lowering the benefits cap would be one of his first priorities as Prime Minister. He said: 'We are saying loud and clear that welfare is a safety net for those in hard times, not a lifestyle choice'
'Until we get rent regulation, this is the consequence we are going to pay.'
Critics of rent controls said they would be 'disastrous' for tenants – and said more house building would cut rents.
Before the general election last year, David Cameron said reducing the cap would be one of his first acts as Prime Minister of a majority government.
Mr Cameron said in January last year: 'Conservatives believe we should be giving people the chance of a better future – while encouraging people on benefits back into work.
'For years we had a welfare system that kept people subsidised in poverty and forgot about them. Hard-working taxpayers were left to pick up the tab – and often they had lower incomes than those they supported on welfare. This is about ending that injustice.
'We are saying loud and clear that welfare is a safety net for those in hard times, not a lifestyle choice.
Most watched News videos
- 15 years since daughter disappeared, mother questions investigation
- Emergency services on scene after gunmen ambush prison van in France
- Flash floods 'rip apart streets' in Herefordshire's Ross-on-Wye
- Jilly Cooper reflects on 'extraordinary' Investiture Ceremony
- British tourists fight with each other in a Majorcan tourist resort
- Harry and Meghan spotted holding hands at polo match in Nigeria
- Youths wield knife in daylight robbery attempt in Woolwich, London
- Boy mistakenly electrocutes his genitals in social media stunt
- Moment brawl breaks out at British-run 'Fighting Cocks' pub in Spain
- Moment Prince Harry and Meghan Markle arrive at Lagos House Marina
- New Colonel-in-Chief Prince William dons army combats
- King Charles unveils first official portrait since Coronation
