Former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned the Government must act now on the two-child benefit limit and said he’s seen a return to the poverty of 60 years ago
Gordon Brown has warned the government child poverty will increase without scrapping a controversial Tory-era benefit cut.
The former Labour Prime Minister said the government should “act now” as he said there was a return to “the kind of poverty of 60 years ago”. 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 Tory policy, which was first introduced in 2017, restricts claims for Child Tax Credit and Universal Credit to the first two children in each family. Mr Brown also told The Mirror the government could raise the cash to tackle child poverty by hiking taxes on the “massively undertaxed profits” of the gambling industry. It comes after Rachel Reeves gave an update on wealth tax calls as pressure mounts to target richest Brits.
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He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that scrapping the two-child benefit limit would be the most “cost-effective” way to tackle sky-high levels of child poverty. He said it made sense on both a moral and an economic basis.
The former PM said: “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.
“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.”
Mr Starmer told MPs in July that he wanted to get child poverty levels down by the end of this Parliament. But the Government is not expected to spell out how it plans to deliver on this pledge until the child poverty strategy is published in the autumn.
In June Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson dropped a firm hint that the benefit limit could be scrapped, telling The Mirror it “was not something that a Labour government would have introduced” before saying it was “clear” it had an impact on child poverty. Ms Phillipson, who co-chairs the Government’s Child Poverty Task Force, admitted in July though that lifting it would be harder after a U-turn on benefits that would have saved £5billion a year.
Mr Brown threw his weight behind proposals from the IPPR thinktank to slap targeted tax hikes on highly profitable parts of the gambling industry – such as online casinos and slot machines. A Betting and Gaming Council spokesperson hit back at the call, saying it would hit ordinary punters and risk pushing people towards the black market.
Over 60% of gambling profits come from just 5% of users, many of whom are at high risk of serious harm, including debt, mental health issues, family breakdown, and suicide, the report claimed.
The reforms could generate up to £3.2billion, which could fund scrapping the two-child limit and benefit cap – two policies blamed for driving up child poverty. It comes as the bosses of 15 charities signed a letter to Keir Starmer urging him to scrap the two-child limit to lift children out of poverty.
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