- Conference
- 2025 National Black Members' Conference
- Date
- 9 September 2024
- Decision
- Carried
The two-child benefit cap prevents parents from claiming child tax credit or universal credit for any third or subsequent child born after April 2017. It was introduced by the former chancellor George Osborne in his austerity drive with the aim of encouraging parents of larger families to find a job or work more hours, however this is unfair in multiple dimensions.
And under this policy, enacted in the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016, families are no longer eligible for means-tested benefits for their third or subsequent children, for all those born after 6 April 2017.
The loss of income for those families affected by the policy is substantial, amounting to up to £3,235 per child in 2023/4. Approximately 1.5 million UK children live in those 10% of families whose income is affected by the two-child limit.
It indirectly discriminates against families from some ethnic and religious communities, who are more likely to have larger families.
It indirectly discriminates against women, who are more likely than men to have caregiving responsibilities.
It directly discriminates against children in larger families (as the UK Supreme Court found in 2021) and is a failure of equal treatment by the state of over a million children.
It disadvantages some children simply because they have two or more siblings – something which is entirely out of their own control.
It reduces the wellbeing and life chances of children in larger families in a way that seems arbitrary from a moral perspective.
Members of black and minority ethnic communities are likely to be disproportionately impacted by Universal Credit (UC), as many black and minority ethnic families are more likely to be living in poverty and therefore likely to be receiving benefits and/or tax credits.
They will have lower levels of financial resources to cope with delays in payment. The move to UC will affect a disproportionate number of minority ethnic people.
There may be language barriers and higher levels of digital exclusion which will mean that a disproportionate number of black and minority ethnic claimants will find it harder to apply for UC and be more likely to be sanctioned for failure to meet claimant commitments.
Black and minority ethnic families are larger on average, and so disproportionately impacted by UC. Consequently, reduced payments, delays in payment or sanctions will lead to an increase in the number of minority ethnic children living in poverty.
UC aims to incentivise people into work. However, the Work Programme has been found to be failing black and minority ethnic people. Therefore, black and minority ethnic families are more likely to remain in workless households or on low and insecure employment.
According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (Barnard, 2014) “Poverty is higher among all ethnic minority groups than among white British people in the UK, but there is variation within and between ethnic groups”. Analysis of the Family Resources Survey 2013 to 2014 (Department for Work and Pensions, 2015c) reveals the demographic distribution of income. From 2011 to 2014, head of households by ethnic group and total weekly household income, shows Indian households earned, on average, more than any other group, more than £1000 per week (34 per cent); whilst 52 per cent of ethnic groups categorised as “Black/African/Caribbean/ Black British” households and 47 per cent of Bangladeshi households earned less than £300 per week.
Abolishing the cap would cost £1.3bn a year but would lift 250,000 children out of poverty, and a further 850,000 would be in less deep poverty, according to campaigners. The End Child poverty coalition says removing the cap would be the most cost-effective way of reducing the number of children living in poverty.
And more than 50 organisations have called for it to be abolished, including the Church of England, the TUC, the Children’s Society and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The prominent social policy academic Prof Jonathan Bradshaw called it “the worst ever social security policy” in a crowded field going back to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. Even David Freud, a Conservative welfare minister at the time of the policy’s announcement, later called the policy “vicious”. He said it was foisted on reluctant ministers by Osborne’s Treasury as the price of introducing universal credit and should be scrapped.
A number of Labour frontbenchers have roundly criticised the cap. Only last month, the shadow work and pensions secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, said: “We are very, very aware that this is one of the single most heinous elements of the system which is pushing children and families into poverty today.” Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, described it as “obscene and inhumane”, and in 2020 Starmer himself tweeted: “We must … scrap punitive sanctions, two-child limit and benefit caps.”
It has also failed to achieve its stated objectives, and has a wide range of negative consequences for society and the economy
Politicians can play a role in shifting public attitudes to the policy by challenging dominant media and political narratives, for example by arguing that universal credit and other benefits are a form of social protection that any of us could need if our circumstances changed, and which mostly provide support for those who are already in work.
Due to the negative impact the two-child has on children and families’ welfare, Conference calls upon:
1)The National Black Members Committee to work along with Unison National Executive Committee to campaign and highlight the negative impact the Two-Child Benefit Cap has on Black members.
2)The National Black Members Committee to jointly work with UNISON National Executive in liaising with Labour Link, local councillors, and MPs to overturn the Two – Child Benefit Cap policy.
