The government’s reluctance to remove the two-child benefit cap, and the punitive action taken against the Labour MPs who voted with their conscience on this matter, betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of deprivation in our country (Labour suspends seven rebels who voted to scrap two-child benefit cap, 23 July).
In the UK, 1.6 million children are affected by the cap. Child poverty has a substantial impact on future health, employment, education and other social outcomes. The cost of this impact is estimated by the Child Poverty Action Group to be £39bn, far outstripping the cost of removing the cap.
The underlying (and patronising) assumption that the poorest people in society have children to get benefits and avoid work has been proven wrong; the policy did not impact employment or working hours. It is a failure on its own terms, as a measure of fiscal control, and of basic humanity.
The only proven solution to child poverty is money. Any meaningful action on child poverty will start with scrapping this unfair and ineffective policy, which literally takes the food from children’s mouths. Keir Starmer has said there is no “silver bullet” to end child poverty, but there is one that stops the government actively driving children into poverty.
Alan Sharkey
Glasgow
• On 12 December 1997, you published letters, including my own, supporting 47 Labour MPs who rebelled against the new Labour government’s plans to cut lone-parent benefits. One minister and two parliamentary private secretaries resigned, but all were given a warning, not disciplined.
What a contrast to the vindictive punishments to seven MPs meted out by the “changed” Labour party. We’re told that Labour will only support policies that have been “fully costed”, but this should include the costs of not implementing the policy. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggested in June, “removing the two-child limit may be less costly in the long run than its upfront cost suggests”.
A study of 147 local authorities in England published in 2022 estimates that 8.1% of children aged under 16 entering care between 2015 and 2020 were cases linked to rising child poverty. This is equivalent to 10,351 additional children. And a study of infant deaths concluded that “the findings suggest that about a third of the increases in infant mortality between 2014 and 2017 can be attributed to rising child poverty”.
Labour may reject the moral argument for ending this policy, but with many other costs borne by schools, charities and families themselves, it needs to demonstrate that its pledge to ensure policies were “fully costed” was more than election rhetoric.
Mike Sheaff
Plymouth
• If we, as a nation, are content to view with equanimity the prospect of the king receiving a record £45m profit on crown estates (Report, 24 July) while a Labour government cannot see its way to revoking the obscenity of the two‑child benefit cap, then I suggest that we deserve all we get.
Leah Key
Largoward, Fife
• The seven ejected MPs should be booted out permanently. They stood on a Labour manifesto “built on a rock of fiscal responsibility”. Promises to their electors and the country should last longer than three weeks.
Peter Brooker
West Wickham, Kent
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