THE Prime Minister’s “warm words” on reducing child poverty have to be backed by further motion, including the top of the two-child profit cap, Christian charities said this week.
In his keynote speech to the Labour Party Conference on Tuesday, Sir Keir Starmer said that the Government’s decision, announced in June, to increase free school meals to greater than half one million additional pupils was the “first step” of the journey to finish child poverty.
“We have walked that road before, and we’ll walk that road again. Because a Britain where no child is hungry, where no child is held back by poverty — that’s a Britain built for all,” he said.
But the director of policy, research, and impact at Trussell, Helen Barnard, said on Tuesday that “warm words don’t pay the bills or put food on the table. We need the UK Government to match its ambition with motion by ending the cruel two-child limit. Families with children cannot afford any further delays.”
She said that the policy, which suggests that folks cannot claim Universal Credit or child tax credit for greater than two children, was “the only biggest driver of kid poverty, pushing tens of millions of families into poverty and to the doors of foodbanks”.
A spokesperson for the Children’s Charities Coalition, which incorporates the Children’s Society, echoed this demand. “It is important the Government scrap the two-child limit directly. This is desperately needed for countless families across the UK struggling to offer their children with the on a regular basis essentials of life,” they said.
“Growing up in poverty can have a devastating impact on children, affecting their health, their well-being and their future potential. Removing the two-child limit entirely would immediately profit lots of of hundreds of kids and be an enormous step forward in tackling the shameful levels of kid poverty on this country,” the spokesperson continued.
Church of England bishops have repeatedly called for the two-child limit — which was introduced by the previous Conservative government — to be scrapped (News, 24 May 2024).
After coming to power last 12 months, the brand new Government faced a back-bench rise up on the problem. As a result, seven MPs had the whip suspended.
The Government has said that the policy could be re-evaluated on the premise of the recommendations of a child-poverty task force. On Tuesday afternoon, The Guardian reported that the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was set to lift the two-child cap within the autumn budget, based on the expected suggestion of the duty force.
