Commentary on provisions of Act Section 8: Benefit cap
The section amends section 96 of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 which provides for the amount of welfare benefits to which a claimant or a couple can be entitled to be capped by reference to a relevant amount in a prescribed manner.
	Subsection (2) amends subsection (5) of section 96 of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 and inserts new subsections (5A) and (5B). Subsection (5) allows for regulations to determine the benefit cap's "relevant amount", which will be the weekly level of the cap that will be applied for housing benefit and the monthly level that will be applied for universal credit. This determination is to be made by reference to the annual limit of entitlement for a single person or a couple and lone parent.
	Subsection (5A) provides that the annual limit for the benefit cap should be £20,000 or £13,400 except in Greater London where it is set at £23,000 or £15,410.
	Subsection (5B) gives the Secretary of State a power to make regulations that specify which limit applies to couples or single people of a prescribed description. The Secretary of State intends to use this power to prescribe that the lower amounts will apply to single people and the higher amounts will apply to couples and lone parents. The Secretary of State is also granted the powers to allow him to make regulations that define when a person is or is not resident in Greater London and that provide for the monthly or weekly figures derived from the annual limit can be rounded where appropriate.
	Subsection (3) omits the existing section 96(6) to (8) of the Welfare Reform Act which require the setting of the "relevant amount" (the level of the cap) with reference to estimated average earnings.
	Subsection (4) amends section (10) of section 96 of the Welfare Reform Act 2012, and defines "welfare benefits" for the purposes of the benefit cap as:
bereavement allowance
child benefit
child tax credit
employment and support allowance
housing benefit
incapacity benefit
income support
jobseeker's allowance
maternity allowance
severe disablement allowance
universal credit
widowed mother's allowance
widowed parent's allowance
widow's pension
	Subsection (5) repeals section 96(11). This is consequential to the amendments to section 96(10).
	Subsection (6) omits the existing section 97(3) of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 which required the first regulations laid under the powers of section 96 to be subject to the affirmative procedure. As the first set of regulations has already been made, the removal of the word "other" from section 97(4) of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 is consequential to the removal of section 97(3) of that Act.
	Subsection (7) makes a consequential change to paragraph 52 of Schedule 12 to the Pensions Act 2014.
	Subsections (8) and (9) provide that regulations made in relation to commencement of subsections (1) to (6) may make such transitional provision or savings as the Secretary of State considers necessary. They also provide that Regulations may stipulate that the amendments need not take effect until the Secretary of State provides by notice that they should, that the amendments may take effect at different times for different persons or description of persons and that regulations may make provision about the issuing of notices.
	Subsection (10) provides that any regulations under subsection (8) do not require consultation with Local Authority Associations under section 176 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992.
	Subsections (11) and (12) provide that any regulations made under subsection (8) must be made by statutory instrument which would be subject to the negative procedure.