The government has been put under further pressure to scrap the “cruel” two-child benefit limit. Speaking at a press conference in London on Tuesday, Reform UK’s Nigel Farage said that his party would remove the limit to make life easier for families and lower-paid workers.
Have your say! Should the government scrap the two-child benefit cap? Is the cap “cruel”, or is it necessary to keep a lid on welfare spending? Comment below, and join in on the conversation.
The two-child limit was introduced by the Conservative government in 2017, and it prevents most families from claiming Child Tax Credit or Universal Credit relating to a third or additional child. The thinking was that it would nudge more parents into work, increasing the workforce and reducing the welfare bill for the state.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government has been under pressure to reverse the change, which they had resisted until a short while ago. Now, Education minister Bridget Phillipson says that scrapping the limit is an “option on the table” in their mission to reduce child poverty.
Ms Phillipson, who leads the government’s child poverty task force alongside Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall, insisted on Monday it was the “moral mission” of the Labour government to ensure fewer kids grow up in poverty.
Charities believe that scrapping it could raise around 350,000 children out of poverty, reports the Mirror. Because the limit applies to children born in or after April 2017, the number of families affected will only grow over time. Estimates vary on the cost of it, but the Resolution Foundation think tank has estimated it would be around £3.5 billion by the end of this Parliament (2029/30).
7 Labour MPs were suspended last summer for voting against the government on the issue, and former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called the measures “cruel”. But the stance has softened, and Nigel Farage’s intervention could force the issue back to the top of the pile.
In a press conference, Farage said that Reform would scrap the two-child benefit limit if Reform were voted in as the next government, as part of a wider policy announcement. He argued: “We believe lifting the two-child cap is the best thing to do, not because we support a benefits culture but because we believe for lower-paid workers this actually makes having children just a little bit easier for them.”
Have your say! Should the government scrap the two-child benefit cap? Is the cap “cruel”, or is it necessary to keep a lid on welfare spending? Comment below, and join in on the conversation.
