Issue - meetings

By Councillor Booth - Two-child Benefits Limit and UK Child Poverty Strategy

“Council:

1)         Notes that the two-child limit on universal credit and tax credits was introduced by the Tory UK Government in 2017;

2)         Notes that, according to the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), “The two-child limit breaks the link between what children need and the support they receive. Removing the two-child limit would lift 300,000 children out of poverty and mean 800,000 children are in less deep poverty”;

3)         Notes that the Resolution Foundation states that reversing the two-child limit would be, “one of the most efficient ways to drive down child poverty rates”, while the Poverty Alliance note that the failure of the Labour UK Government to include a commitment to ending the two-child limit in the King’s Speech means, “millions across the UK will still face the same policies and rules that have kept them in poverty under the last government.”

4)         Agrees the two-child cap should be ended as soon as possible, as a first step to developing an effective UK strategy on ending child poverty.

5)         Therefore agrees that the council leader will write to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Liz Kendall, urging her to end the two-child limit as soon as possible, as a first step to developing an effective strategy on ending child poverty.”