Regional campaigners call for end to ‘two-child limit’ affecting 8,200 children in the Rochdale borough

Regional campaigners are calling for an end to the ‘two-child limit’ to social security payments.

Research by the End Child Poverty coalition has found that, by 2022, 89,270 babies and children across Greater Manchester were directly impacted by the policy which means that – since its introduction in April 2017 – almost all families having a third or subsequent child are no longer entitled to receive support for those children through Universal Credit or Child Tax Credit.

The two-child benefit cap applies to the family element of Universal Credit and Child Tax Credits for children born on or after 6 April 2017. There is no limit to how many children you can claim for under the specific Child Benefit.

According to the End Child Poverty Coalition, the number of children impacted by the limit in the Rochdale borough totals 8,200: 17% of all children in the Rochdale constituency, which is one of the worst impacted in the Greater Manchester Parliamentary constituencies, and 13% in Heywood and Middleton.

Greater Manchester Poverty Action has joined forces with MPs and fellow End Child Poverty coalition members across the country to call for an end to the payment cap.

Graham Whitham, End Child Poverty Coalition spokesperson and CEO of Greater Manchester Poverty Action, said: “The two-child limit on benefits is one of the most pernicious welfare policies ever seen in this country - it’s time for it to be scrapped. It forces parents into horrible choices and denies families the support they need from our social security system.

“This new data serves to show the extremely damaging effect this policy is having in Greater Manchester and across the country. The government must lift the two-child limit so that all children can thrive.”

Joseph Howes, chair of the End Child Poverty Coalition and CEO of Buttle UK, said: “The benefits system should be there to help us all.

“Any family could fall on hard times - from losing a partner, being unable to obtain secure properly paid employment, or not being able to keep up with the increase in the cost of living. Poorer families who rely on benefit payments are denied the money they need for their children as payments are capped at the second child.”

“There is one policy change that we know would make a direct and immediate difference, and that is to scrap the two-child limit. The policy is unfair in the indiscriminate impact it has on children, and there is no evidence it has achieved its aims. Abolishing the two-child limit would immediately lift 250,000 children out of poverty, and the government could make this change now.”

New House of Commons library research has revealed that scrapping the two-child benefit cap would lift 270,000 households out of poverty at a cost of £1.4 billion. Additional research by the End Child Poverty Coalition has shown that abolishing the two-child limit would be the most cost-effective way of reducing child poverty.

The figures, obtained by Labour MP Jon Trickett, show that more households with children have been pushed into poverty than previously thought.

The Commons Library model the costs of lifting the two-child limit on universal credit and child tax credit – estimating it would cost around £1.4 billion in 2023/24 and £1.7 billion in 2024/25.

Mr Trickett said the cost is “absolutely affordable,” adding: “Every child deserves an equal chance to get on in life. This is a sensible policy that would improve the life chances of some of our country’s most disadvantaged children.”

The Government’s rationale for the policy is that parents who receive support from the social security system should make the ‘same financial choices’ about having children as those supporting themselves solely through work.

However, campaigners argue that the majority of families caught by the two-child limit across the country – 58% – are in work, with the policy creating a hole in their budgets.

They argue that many others will have their children at a time when they are able to support themselves solely through work, but may need to turn to the social security system at some point in the future – for example, as a result of redundancy, bereavement, ill health or the breakdown of a relationship.

Last week MPs called for the ‘ineffective and cruel’ two-child cap to be abolished in a debate led by the MP for Liverpool Riverside, Kim Johnson.

She said: “The two-child cap on benefits payments is as cruel as it is ineffective. Larger families are punished, leaving them struggling. Lifting the cap would immediately lift a quarter of a million children out of poverty – making it the single most effective intervention to tackle child poverty.

“The evidence is there for all to see. Punishing families for having more than two children doesn’t push parents back into work – it only drives more children into poverty.

“Tory austerity cuts were nothing less than an ideological drive to rig the economy in favour of the few at the expense of the many. And children in my constituency and across the country are now paying the price. The impact of growing up in poverty can be lifelong. We cannot wait for a new government to provide these children with a future, the government must listen now and lift the two-child cap.”

Speaking in Parliament on 11 July, Ms Johnson said: “Black and ethnic minority families and single-parent families are disproportionately impacted, as well as families who rent. The two-child limit creates a huge hole in budgets that simply cannot be plugged by working additional hours. 

“We know that lifting the cap would immediately raise 250,000 children out of poverty, and a further 850,000 out of deep poverty. Campaigners call it the single most effective intervention that would tackle child poverty immediately. It would cost this government just £1.4 billion.”

She continued: “We know that the money is there to help struggling families, if we can only find the will.

“The evidence is there for all to see. Punishing families for having more than two children does not push parents back into work; it only drives more children into poverty. 

“Seven out of 10 children living in poverty in this country are in working families. Just let that statistic sink in for a minute: over two thirds of the children who live in poverty in the fifth richest country in the world are struggling because their parents’ wages are not enough to live on and raise a family.”

Responding, Guy Opperman, the Minister for Employment, said the government believes the “best way to support people’s living standards is through work, better skills and higher wages.”

He said: “The Government believes the policy to support a maximum of two children is a proportionate way to achieve these objectives. Similarly, the benefit cap provides both a strong work incentive and fairness for hard-working tax-paying households.”

He added he did not “accept the arguments about poverty”, nor the figures “rising week in, week out.”

Mr Opperman continued: “In 2021-22, children living in a household in which all the adults were in work were five times less likely to be in absolute poverty after housing costs than children living in workless households.

“We believe that we have made progress. In 2021-22, there were 1.7 million fewer people in absolute poverty after housing costs than there were in 2009-10, including, as has been made clear, 400,000 fewer children.

“There are also nearly 1 million fewer workless households now than there were in 2010.”

Whilst he welcomed the debate, noting he shared Ms Johnson’s “concern that children should be supported by the social security system,” Mr Opperman concluded: “We are very much of the view that – whether it is through the 10% benefits increase, the £94 billion of support to vulnerable households, the uprating of the national living wage or the work of jobcentres up and down the country to support in-work progression – there is support out there.”