Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson made clear the two-child benefit limit- introduced by austerity Chancellor George Osborne – had pushed kids into poverty
Scrapping the controversial two-child benefit limit is an option “on the table”, Bridget Phillipson has insisted.
The Education Secretary made clear the policy – introduced by austerity Chancellor George Osborne – had pushed kids into poverty. Keir Starmer has previously resisted calls to scrap the measure and seven Labour MPs were suspended for voting against the government last summer over the issue.
But reports over the weekend claimed the PM is now open to abolishing the two-child limit, which has been labelled “cruel” by Gordon Brown. Any decision is not expected to be formally announced until the Budget.
Experts have said scrapping the policy, which restricts parents from claiming Universal Credit or Child Tax Credits for any children beyond their first two, would be the most effective way to live around 350,000 kids out of poverty.
Ms Phillipson’s comments came after the government faced a backlash for delaying the publication of a major strategy on tackling grim rates of child poverty. It had been due to report in the coming weeks but has been pushed back to the Autumn to align with the Budget.
It is estimated scrapping the two-child benefit limit would cost the Treasury around £3.5billion-per-year. But the Child Poverty Action Group says the policy, which hits children born after April 2017, impacts an extra 100 kids every day.
Ms Phillipson, who leads the government’s child poverty task force alongside Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall, insisted on Monday it was the “moral mission” of the Labour government to ensure fewer kids grow up in poverty.
Pressed on the two-child benefit limit, Ms Phillipson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I’ve always been clear it is on the table. All elements of the social security system are part of what we’re considering as part of the child poverty taskforce.”
She said: “These are not straight-forward choices, the price tag associated with this is big, but what I would also say when it comes to the price tag, the cost of inaction is also incredibly high because this scars the life chances of children in our country. That’s devastating for those children and families but actually for all of us as a society, we miss out on the tremendous contribution and talent of so many people.”
The Education Secretary added: “What we’re talking about today around the two-child limit… we’re not changes a Labour government introduced, they are not changes that a Labour government would have ever introduced. But seeking to unwind that and to change the social security system is not easy and it costs a lot of money and we’ve got to get this right.”
Ms Phillipson went on: “It will be the moral mission of this Labour government to ensure fewer children grow up in poverty.”
Describing the impacts of the two-child benefit limit, she added: “I’ve had conversations with people I represent… who made perfectly reasonable and rational decisions to have a number of children, to have three children say.
“Then something terrible happens in their lives. One constituent I met lost their partner, who died unexpectedly. They then find themselves unable to access the full support that they had anticipated for their whole family even when they made what was a perfectly reasonable choice around family size.
“The changes to the social security system the Conservatives introduced haven’t had an impact on the decisions people are making around family size. All it has done has pushed more children into poverty.”
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