CHILD poverty will probably be higher at the tip of this Parliament than when the Government took office if it chooses to not scrap the two-child limit and profit cap in its Child Poverty Strategy, charities have warned.
Signatories to a letter on Tuesday urging the Prime Minister to indicate personal commitment and leadership on the difficulty include charities whose advice the Government requested in its October 2024 policy paper on tackling child poverty (News, 1 November 2024) — something that it described as “each an ethical imperative and crucial to constructing a stronger society and economy”.
That paper acknowledged: “Poverty scars the lives and life probabilities of our kids. It is shameful that child poverty has increased by 700,000 since 2010, with over 4 million children now living in poverty within the UK and 800,000 children using foodbanks to eat. This is unacceptable.”
It emphasised: “We recognise the causes of kid poverty are deep rooted, with solutions that transcend government, and can involve motion from across society, including businesses, voluntary community and social enterprises (VCSE) working together in latest and improved partnerships.”
The two-child limit denies child allowances in Universal Credit to 3rd or subsequent children born after April 2017: a policy that affects 1.6 million children within the UK. It “pushes increasingly children into poverty day-after-day and can act as a break on another motion taken by government to scale back poverty”, the charities write.
They argue that the profit cut pushes 300,000 children into deep poverty at a time when a parent’s capability to work is restricted; and that neither policy is compatible with the ambition to boost living standards.
The letter commends the “strong leadership” from the Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions and Education, and the “thorough engagement from the Child Poverty Unit”. It asks Sir Keir Starmer to “look to [his] personal leadership to deliver this alteration . . . with a public narrative about why it matters a lot to your vision for the country.”
The signatories — Child Poverty Action Group, Citizens Advice, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Save the Children UK, Barnardo’s, Trussell, the Children’s Society, and Action for Children, together with the National Children’s Bureau, the End Child Poverty Coalition, Centre for Young Lives, and Gingerbread — declare: “There might be no road to sustainable national growth unless child poverty reduces at scale and at pace.”
Bishops within the House of Lords — notably the previous Bishop of Durham, the Rt Revd Paul Butler — have consistently urged the Government to scrap the profit cap. “Life might be unpredictable,” he told peers in March 2023. “There is not any longer a security net to catch [larger families who fall on hard times] and put them back on their feet.”
Through removing the two-child limit, “each child will probably be valued, and kids will now not be reduced to a number, but be seen as individuals with price and potential.”
