- Conference
- 2025 National Women's Conference
- Date
- 17 October 2024
- Decision
- Carried
This Conference notes:
• That an estimated 4.3 million children in the UK live in poverty.
• The two-child benefit cap, introduced by the Tories under David Cameron, which means that families with three or more children are denied approximately £3000 per child compared to families where all the children were born before 2017.
• That this policy has led to around 1.5 million children living in families where their benefits have been reduced.
• The report by the Institute of Fiscal Studies which found that removing the cap would lift over half a million children out of poverty and would be the “single most cost-effective way” to bring children out of poverty. This would cost £2.5bn a year.
• That Child Poverty Action Group data shows “10,000 children have been pulled into poverty by the two-child limit since the government took office” in early July.
• That there have been repeated calls on the new Labour government to scrap the cap, but this been refused.
This Conference believes:
• That children of lone parents are amongst those most likely to be in poverty because of this cap. Women are more likely to be lone parents, and therefore bear the brunt of this.
• Because women are most likely to be primary care-givers to children, it is women who are also most likely to ‘go without’ so that children have food, clothing and as secure a home as possible.
• That a Labour government should make commitments and take action to eradicate child poverty. This includes ending the two-child benefit cap as a matter of urgency.
This Conference calls upon the National Women’s Committee to work with all relevant bodies within UNISON such as but not limited to the NEC, the Labour Link committee, and campaign for an end to the two-child benefit cap.