UC Benefit Cap- Grace period

A hypothetical case but prompted by something that happened to a cl last week.

The cl stopped work , claimed UC and the benefit cap was applied as they weren’t exempt under the usual rules. The grace period would have applied but for the fact that for a couple of months in the middle of the preceding twelve the cl was only getting SSP and the income for those two months fell below the minimum for the grace period.

The cl fell foul of the requirement for the earnings to be above a specified amount in each of the twelve months prior to the UC claim and the cap was applied.

The hypothetical case is whether it would be reasonable to treat a claimant as having earned above the minimum if their average earnings for the preceding twelve months was over the minimum. I know that the UC Regs specify otherwise but it strikes me that the intent was to ‘reward’ the cl for having earnings and it is somewhat perverse to limit the application of the grace period in this way.

I would be interested to hear anyone’s thoughts about this, many people only get SSP when sick despite having quite reasonable wages when they are working and this seems to create an unnecessary problem