Overview of the Bill
1 This Bill deals with:
● Creating statutory duties for the Government to report on:
o Progress towards its commitment to achieving full employment
o Progress against meeting its target of 3 million new apprenticeships in this Parliament
o Progress on the Troubled Families Programme
● Life chances
o Amending Child Poverty Act 2010 to become the Life Chances Act
o Removing income related targets and replacing them with new measures to improve the life chances of children.
o Creating a statutory 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.
o Reforming and renaming the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission as the Social Mobility Commission (the Commission) .
o Removal of most other duties and provisions in the Child Poverty Act 2010 (but retaining provisions relating to devolved administrations)
● Reducing the benefit cap to £20,000, except for £23,000 in Greater London
● Freezing certain social security benefits and certain tax credit amounts for four tax years
● Limitation in the amount of support provided by the child tax credit for families who become responsible for a child born on or after 6 April 2017
● Limiting the child element of universal credit to a maximum of two children and removing the distinction between the first and subsequent children in the rate of the child element
● Removing the work-related activity component in employment and support allowance and the limited capability for work element in universal credit
● Changes to conditionality for responsible carers in universal credit
● Replacing current support for mortgage interest payments for benefit claimants with the offer of a recoverable interest-bearing loan secured as a second charge on claimants’ properties
● Changes to social housing rents