Starmer needs emergency budget to abolish two-child benefit cap
by Sir Keir Starmer will push thousands of Scottish children into poverty by extending Tory welfare cuts and slashing £18billion from public services if he doesn’t hold an emergency budget to scrap the two-child cap, raise universal credit, and abolish the bedroom tax.
The SNP made this warning as the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) produced a report saying 670,000 more children will be hit by the two-child benefit cap by the end of the next Parliament if action isn’t taken.
The IFS research shows 250,000 children will be hit by the policy over the next year alone.
Yet, Keir Starmer’s Labour failed to commit to abolishing the policy in its manifesto – meaning thousands of children will be pushed into poverty.
The research shows that the policy will affect one in five children, costing families an average of £4,300 a year, or 10% of their income. Among the poorest fifth of households, 38% will be affected.
Eduin Latimer, research economist at the IFS, said the two-child limit had:
“[A] particularly big impact on the number of children in poverty for two reasons: it mostly affects poorer households and, by definition, its effects are entirely concentrated in families with at least three children.”
The SNP has consistently called for the two-child cap to be abolished; and anti-poverty charities are clear it is one of the biggest drivers of child poverty in the UK.
Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, said child poverty in the UK is:
“[A] national disgrace and the biggest driver of it is the two-child limit. It makes life worse for kids up and down the country and limits their future chances. Any government serious about making things better for the next generation will have to scrap the two-child limit, and do so quickly.”