FAMILIES have borne the brunt of benefit caps in Gwynedd over the last five years, new figures show.

The vast majority of households affected include young children, with charities warning that the cuts risk leaving families homeless or hauling them below the poverty line.

Figures from the Department for Work and Pensions show that between the introduction of the cap in April 2013 and February this year, 186 families had their housing benefits docked in Gwynedd.

Couples with children are limited to an annual income from all benefits of £20,000, or £385 a week. In London, the cap is higher, at £23,000.

There are lower rates for single parents and households without children.

Over the last five years, eight households in Gwynedd were docked more than £100 a week.

The majority of capped claimants, 60 per cent were single parents with children. Couples with children accounted for a further 40 per cent of cases.

The chief executive of Shelter, Polly Neate, said: “We hear every day from families who have been hauled below the poverty line by the cap on housing benefit, with many struggling to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads.

“The cap is a cruel and ineffective way of achieving what the government claims is their aim of getting people into work, and doesn’t account for the wildly varying rent levels across the country.

“We continue to call on the government to urgently lift the cap before even more families are put at risk of homelessness.”

The chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing, Terrie Alafat, said: “The benefit cap is supposed to be about fairness, but these latest statistics show it is fundamentally unfair.

“The government says the cap is supposed to encourage people to move into work, but it is clear that most of the people affected will find that incredibly difficult. And almost half of the households affected are losing more than £50 a week, a huge loss for families on low incomes.”

With the unemployment rate at 4.2 per cent, its lowest level since 1975, the Work and Pensions Secretary, Esther McVey, said the policy is working.

She said: “Every child deserves the best start in life, and we know that children living in a household with someone in work do better in school, have better educational attainment and are more likely to have a job later in life than children growing up in a home where no one works.

“In the past there could have been families living in cycles of worklessness without the proper support or incentives to move into work with the security and peace of mind that comes from a regular wage.

“We now have record employment in the UK with more than one thousand people moving into jobs each and every day since 2010.”

In February this year, the most recent month for which data is available, 79 families were still having their benefits capped in Gwynedd.

In November 2016, the limit for benefits to be capped was lowered, from £500 a week nationwide. Prior to this, only 19 families in Gwynedd were having their benefits capped.