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Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016

Contents

Overview of the Act

  1. This Act:

    • Creates statutory duties for the Government to report on:

      • Progress towards its full employment commitment.
      • Progress against meeting its target of 3 million new apprenticeships in this Parliament.
      • Progress on the Troubled Families Programme.

    • On children living in low-income households:

      • Creates a statutory duty for the Government to publish data on children in low-income households.

    • On life chances:

      • Amends the Child Poverty Act 2010 to become the Life Chances Act 2010.
      • Removes income related targets and replaces them with new measures to improve the life chances of children.
      • Creates a duty on the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament an annual report containing data on children living in workless households in England and the educational attainment of children in England at the end of Key Stage 4.
      • Reforms and renames the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission as the Social Mobility Commission ("the Commission").
      • Removes most other duties and provisions in the Child Poverty Act 2010 including certain duties relating to the devolved administrations.

    • Reduces the benefit cap to £23,000 or £15,410 in Greater London and £20,000 or £13,400 elsewhere.

    • Freezes certain social security benefits and certain tax credit amounts for four tax years.

    • Limits the amount of support provided by child tax credit for families who become responsible for a child born on or after 6 April 2017.

    • Limits the child element of universal credit to a maximum of two children and removes the distinction between the first and subsequent children in the rate of the child element.

    • Removes the work-related activity component in employment and support allowance and the limited capability for work element in universal credit.

    • Changes conditionality for responsible carers in universal credit.

    • Replaces current support for mortgage interest payments for benefit claimants with the offer of a recoverable interest-bearing loan.

    • Allows the government to recover certain administrative costs incurred in relation to the Motability scheme - and any such scheme that is equivalent in purpose.

    • Makes changes in provisions relating to social housing rents.

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