Do children deserve to be driven into poverty? While a Conservative politician is unlikely to answer such a question with an affirmative, their deeds say otherwise. When George Osborne limited child tax credit and universal credit to two children, he was punishing young people with hardship because of something entirely outside their control: being the third or fourth child instead of the first or second.
For Labour, the answer should be obvious: scrap the policy, because no child should be punished with poverty. Whatever New Labour’s failings, it succeeded in scooping a million children out of poverty. Since then, the two-child benefit cap has driven 250,000 children into poverty, and another 850,000 deeper below the breadline. Crucially, it has failed on its own stated terms of encouraging parents to take up more hours or find work. It hammers working households – the children of care workers, checkout assistants, cleaners – and those out of work alike. An exemption exists in theory for cases of rape or coercion, but the process of informing the government is onerous and potentially traumatic: most of those eligible, therefore, do not do so. As a new report by academics at York University underlines, people’s circumstances change, whether due to job losses or relationship breakdown. Many families aren’t even aware of the cap until after their third child arrives, and they want to claim benefits.
