High Court judges have rejected a legal challenge to the Government's benefit cap brought by three single mothers and their children.

The London-based claimants, who were supported by the Child Poverty Action Group and the Women's Aid Federation, argued the £26,000 annual ceiling on household benefits was in breach of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Convention on Human Rights.

The benefit cap was piloted in four London boroughs this April before taking effect nationwide from July.

To soften the immediate impact in hard cases, the Government gave local authorities extra cash to fund discretionary housing payments and powers to top up the amount.  However, only 14% of councils have chosen to supplement the cash-limited fund.

In summarising the evidence, the judges said it was a ‘striking feature of the scheme' that the cap applies equally to a childless couple in an area with cheap and plentiful social housing as it does to a lone parent mother of several children in inner London compelled to rent on the private market',

They cited evidence from Shelter highlighting the problems with compelling residents to relocate to other parts of the country where rents are cheaper and housing benefits correspondingly lower. 

Shelter reported many local authorities would give lower priority to people without local links, the dearth of available accommodation and the ‘fact that where housing is available and cheap, this is because the area is generally deprived and is likely to suffer from high unemployment'.

Senior judges Lord Justice Elias and Mr Justice Bean ruled that many people would consider ‘the cap to be too parsimonious'.

‘But that is ultimately a policy issue, and for the reasons we have given we do not think it can be said that the scheme is so manifestly unfair or disproportionate as to justify an interference by the courts,' the judges stated.

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said:  ‘We are very pleased that the court has ruled that the benefit cap complies with the European Convention on Human Rights.

‘The benefit cap sets a fair limit to what people can expect to get from the welfare system – so that claimants cannot receive more than £500 a week, the average household earnings,' the spokesman added.