EXPERTS have dismissed a Labour Cabinet Secretary’s claim that it is “open to debate” whether the two-child cap on benefits causes harm.
Pat McFadden, a close Keir Starmer ally serving as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, made the remarks as he defended Labour’s decision to keep the Tory policy in place – and said removing it would not feature in the King’s Speech.
McFadden’s comments were branded “absolutely outrageous” by SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn, who said they “fly in the face of reality”.
Other top SNP figures also hit out, with Scottish Government Minister Christina McKelvie saying that to suggest it is up for debate whether the benefits cap causes harm “is the worst type of moral and political cowardice”.
Labour refusing to accept that a policy that keeps children in poverty causes ‘harm’. Astonishing. pic.twitter.com/Mneznn8w8T
— Stephen Flynn MP (@StephenFlynnSNP) July 17, 2024
Now, experts including Ruth Patrick, a social policy professor with the University of York, have also dismissed McFadden’s comments.
Patrick told The National: “There is an abundance of evidence on the very real and lasting harm caused by the two-child limit, a poverty producing policy which severs the vital link between need and entitlement in our social security system.
“Working with researchers at the universities of Oxford, London School of Economics, and York, I've led research into the impact of the two-child limit and the benefit cap, funded by the Nuffield Foundation. This research's principle finding has been the harm that the policy causes, harm which is ultimately the result of a political choice; a choice that can and must be overturned by the new Labour Government.”
Patrick said that statistical analysis and interviews with parents showed that the two-child limit was leaving families without sufficient funds to meet basic needs “leaving parents with almost impossible decisions to make, such as which child's needs to prioritise that month, or how to tell their child they cannot attend the after school football club because they just don't have the £2 it costs spare”.
The two-child cap prevents people from claiming support for their third or subsequent children, unless they can prove certain conditions such as that the child is a product of rape. The cap affected 450,000 UK families in April 2024 and that number is rising, according to the Resolution Foundation.
Martin Crewe, the director of children’s charity Barnardo’s Scotland, said there was “no debate – the two-child limit on benefits has a huge impact on child poverty in the UK”.
Crewe added: “The two-child limit is a ‘sibling penalty’ and is now affecting 1.6 million children across the UK. This includes 240,000 children – one in four – in Scotland.”
He said that most families receiving Universal Credit are in work and struggling for reasons beyond their control, adding: “Children are ultimately paying the price, growing up in poverty and dealing with the consequences of this for the rest of their lives.”
Alison Garnham, the chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, said that the “two-child limit is the biggest driver of rising child poverty and teachers, struggling parents and even children themselves can testify to the harm the policy is causing to kids day in, day out”.
Garnham further criticised the new UK Government for having pledged an ambitious approach to tackling child poverty – while offering “little to help achieve that aim”.
Green MP Sian Berry said McFadden’s comments showed he was “out of touch to the levels of poverty in this country”.
She went on: “The two-child cap is a cruel policy which punishes larger families. The [Institute for Fiscal Studies] revealed last month that the cap has contributed to pushing up the share of children in large families who are in relative poverty from 35% in 2014-15 to 46% in 2022.
“No child should have to worry about having the very basics in life, to be well fed, a warm secure home and a decent education. But increasingly these basics are at risk.
“While Labour will tell us there is no money, the Government could easily afford to scrap the limit by tweaking the tax system to make it fairer – for example by equalising capital gains tax with income tax.
“Instead, ministers choose to protect the most well off in society at the expense of some of the poorest. Green MPs will be working cross party to press the Government to change policy and get rid of the two-child benefit cap."
Equalising capital gains tax and income tax was also a proposal put forward by SNP Westminster leader Flynn during an appearance on BBC Radio Scotland on Wednesday.
He said that between £10bn and £15bn could be raised by equalising the two taxes, adding: “Ultimately the UK Government needs to act. It needs to take responsibility.”
Experts at the Resolution Foundation have calculated that abolishing the two-child limit would cost the Government somewhere between £2.5bn and £3.6bn in 2024-25, adding such costs are “low compared to the harm that the policy causes”.
