PRESSURE piled on Labour to scrap the government’s cruel “sibling penalty” today as campaigners warned it’s set to push the majority of large families below the poverty line by the end of this parliament.
The two-child benefit limit, introduced in 2017, stops parents from claiming universal credit or child tax credit for more than two children.
But figures from the Department for Work and Pensions show 1.6 million children are now affected by the policy, rising by 100,000 in a year.
The Resolution Foundation warned the policy will push most large families below the breadline by the end of the parliament and said abolishing it would lift 490,000 children out of poverty.
Sir Keir Starmer pledged to reduce child poverty at Labour’s manifesto launch, but failed to commit to scrapping the cap.
He previously said he would remove it in an “ideal world” but “we haven’t got the resources to do it at the moment.”
But research by the End Child Poverty Coalition highlighted that child poverty costs the country an estimated £39 billion a year, taking into account increased public service expenditures and lost economic output due to lower earnings potential among those who grew up in poverty.
More than half of those affected by the policy are single parents, who are more likely to be women, the coalition said.
Barnardo’s chief executive Lynn Perry said the limit was “effectively a ‘sibling penalty.’
“Most families receiving universal credit are in work and many are struggling for reasons beyond their control – such as a family break-up, the death of a partner or losing a job.”
Child Poverty Action Group chief executive Alison Garnham said: “Children are losing their life chances to the two-child limit now – they can’t wait for the new government to align every star before the policy is scrapped.
“The PM came to office pledging a bold, ambitious child poverty-reduction plan and there’s no way to deliver on that promise without scrapping the two-child limit, and fast.”
A survey by Child Poverty Action Group of 560 families hit by the policy found 93 per cent said that it had affected their ability to pay for food, while 82 per cent said it meant they struggle to cover gas or electricity bills.
A couple with four children in a working household told the charity that the cap has “severely inhibited the children’s ability to experience a full life as [we’re] economically restricted. Shoes with holes, clothes too small. Hungry at times.”
Another working couple with four children said their offspring cannot attend school some days “as we can’t afford the trips out for them or the dress down days or the contributions for photos or Christmas cards or Pudsey day … They can only have two haircuts each year.”
Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington John McDonnell said: “Labour’s manifesto committed our new government to implementing an anti-poverty strategy to tackle the scourge of poverty in our society.
“Scrapping the brutal two-child cap could be a vitally important first step in this strategy and would send out a clear message about the priorities of this new administration.”
