IDS assertion that excluding CHB from benefit cap would be equivalent of £50,000 earnings based on family with 10 or more children

from yesterday’s hansard -

Chirs Grayling asked about bais of calculation that excluding CHB from benefit cap would be equivalent of £50,000 earnings says that this would be approaching the case where family had 10 or more children.

‘Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what calculations his Department made in reaching its estimate that a working household would have to earn £35,000 per year for its net income to exceed the maximum payable under the proposed benefit cap and £50,000 per year if child benefit was excluded from the cap. [92466]

If child benefit was excluded, then the gross earnings of someone in work would need to be much higher in order to have the equivalent net income from work as someone on benefits. The exact equivalent in gross earnings would depend on the number of children in the family. For example, a family with four children would receive nearly £30,000 in benefits which is the equivalent to £40,000 in earnings and a family with 10 children or more would receive over £33,000 in benefits which is the equivalent to gross earnings of towards £50,000 a year.’

here’s link to hansard -
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201212/cmhansrd/cm120130/text/120130w0003.htm#12013051000073

I did a case study on the PRESENT benefit regime which shows that a family with 5 school-age children renting a 4 bed house in Basingstoke in band E for council tax would get in benefits:

if the sole breadwinner was earning £35,000 gross, £332.25 a week (ChB, LHA and CTB)

if the sole breadwinner was out of work and claiming jobseeker’s allowance, £711.14; and

if the sole breadwinner was working 40 hours a week for the national minimum wage, £613.06.

That shocked me. Our LHA for a 4-bed house is slightly under £250 a week, so how could this family downsize and find somewhere cheaper?