What will become of the benefit cap as UK’s poorest families set to miss out on cost of living help?

It was former chancellor George Osborne who introduced the limit on how much support people could receive from the state, but, asks Kate Devlin, is it still as popular with some voters as was believed then?

Rishi Sunak announced a new raft of measures to tackle the cost of living crisis on Thursday (PA Media)

In some ways, the story of the benefit cap mirrors what we are seeing in politics today – a chancellor balancing economic policy, his own instincts and public opinion.

It was George Osborne who introduced the limit on how much support people could receive from the state back in 2013.

At the time it was part of his austerity measures, cuts the government said were necessary in the wake of the 2008 financial crash.

Ministers argued the move would also encourage people to change their behaviour – and that those on benefits had to make the same difficult choices, such as whether or not they could afford another child, as those not on benefits.

However, last year one of his former colleagues, the former welfare reform minister no less, Lord Freud, suggested that labelling the cap an austerity measure was a sham.

He said he had been told by a senior member of Osborne’s team: “I know it doesn’t make much in the way of savings but when we tested the policy it polled off the charts. We’ve never had such a popular policy.”

There were reports recently that a similar economic policy was also extremely popular with the public.

That was, of course, the windfall tax on energy firms that ministers spent weeks attacking, and which Rishi Sunak announced in his £15bn cost of living package.

Sunak did mention the benefit cap in his speech to MPs. But it was simply to tell them that a £650 one-off payment going to around 8 million households this year will also be received by those subject to the cap.

But he was silent on the subject when confirming that benefits will rise next year by this September’s rate of inflation, which some predict could be as high as 10 per cent.

Experts, including the IFS, have told The Independent that means the 120,000 households currently subject to the cap look set to miss out. It is hard to say what internal Treasury polling on the benefit tax would reveal. Is it still as popular with some voters as George Osborne’s aides believed?

Perhaps the answer lies in what happened during the Covid-19 pandemic. When ministers increased universal credit by £20 a week, they did not raise the benefit cap.

Amid warnings of soaring energy costs and “apocalyptic” food prices, will the government make the same decision again?