Ex-PM Gordon Brown says a hike in tax on the ‘massively undertaxed profit’ of the gambling industry could raise enough cash to scrap the controversial two-child benefit limit
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has dangled the possibily of a hike in gambling taxes as Gordon Brown urged her to use the levy to tackle child poverty.
The former Prime Minister told The Mirror this week ministers could raise the cash to help kids through the “massively undertaxed profits” of the gambling industry. Mr Brown, who was also Chancellor between 1997 and 2007, said it could generate £3.2billion and be used to scrap the Tory-era two-child benefit limit.
Speaking on Thursday, Ms Reeves said: “I talk to Gordon regularly, and saw him last week when I was in Scotland. Like Gordon, I am deeply concerned around the levels of child poverty in Britain. No child should grow up hungry or parents not be able to afford the basics for their family.” It comes as the Chancellor also gave an update on wealth tax calls as pressure mounts to target richest Brits.
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Ms Reeves added today: “We’re a Labour Government. Of course, we care about child poverty. That’s why one of the first things we did as a government was to set up a child poverty task force that will be reporting in the autumn and (will) respond to it then.”
She added: “On gambling taxes, we’ve already launched a review into gambling taxes. We’re taking evidence on that at the moment, and again, we’ll set out our policies in the normal way, in our Budget later this year.”
Reforms to gambling levies could generate the £3.2 billion needed to scrap the two-child limit and benefit cap, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said.
The two-child limit which was first introduced in 2017 and restricts claims for Child Tax Credit and Universal Credit to the first two children in each family. Charities have blamed the policy for trapping kids in poverty.
Mr Brown wrote in The Mirror this week: “With the public finances tight and children hungry, there is an obvious fix: raise the massively undertaxed profits of the gambling industry and put the proceeds to use to lift 500,000 children out of poverty.”
Earlier on Thursday, he also warned the government to “act now” or see child poverty rise. He told the BBC the country was seeing a return to the “kind of poverty of sixty years ago” with record numbers of children living in temporary accomodation.
Mr Brown said axing the two-child benefit limit, which has been blamed for trapping kids in poverty, would be the most “cost-effective” way of tackling poverty levels.
The former PM told the BBC: “We are dealing with a divided Britain. We are dealing with a social crisis. If I tell you that a million children will be trying to sleep tonight without a bed of their own, that two million children are in homes without a cooker or a fridge or a washing machine… something has got to be done.”
He added: “This problem is getting worse. It’s going to worsen over the next few years because there’s a built-in escalator in the poverty figures because of the two-child rule.
“Unless we do something about it we’re going to pile up costs for the future.” He added: “I live in the constituency in which I grew up. I still live here. I see everyday this situation getting worse. I did not think I would see the kind of poverty I saw when I was growing up when we had slum housing… this is a return to the kind of poverty of sixty years ago and I think we’ve got to act now.”
But a spokesman for the Betting and Gaming Council said the proposals to hike taxes on the industry would “only hit the ordinary punters”. They added: “Further tax rises, fresh off the back of government reforms which cost the sector over a billion in lost revenue, would do more harm than good, for punters, jobs, growth and public finances.”
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