Lifting the two-child limit will result in 570,000 low-income households \u2013 more than two million children \u2013 receiving more money by 2030-31, according to a Government assessment.<\/p>\n
Ministers estimate that this increase in support for families with three or more children will lift 450,000 children out relative poverty by 2039.<\/p>\n
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But 60,000 of eligible families will see some, or all, of their cash boost docked because they will hit an overall household benefit cap, an impact assessment revealed.<\/p>\n
The cap prevents households where no one is in work from claiming an annual total of more than \u00a322,000 a year, or slightly more in London where living costs are higher.<\/p>\n
It does not apply to households earning at least \u00a3846 each month through paid work. Ministers said in December that they had no plans to change or remove this household benefit cap.<\/a><\/p>\n According to the impact assessment, 50,000 households will not gain financially from the two-child limit due to being benefit capped \u2013 and a further 10,000 will only partially gain.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, MPs will vote on the second reading of the two-child benefit limit bill, bringing it closer to being passed into law.<\/p>\n Two-child cap linked to rising poverty<\/p>\n The decision to scrap it, announced last year by Sir Keir Starmer<\/a> and Chancellor Rachel Reeves<\/a>, has become a central part of Labour\u2019s promise to bring down rising levels of child poverty<\/a>.<\/p>\n The limit, and the household benefit cap, were both introduced under the Tory-led coalition government in 2013.<\/p>\n Other than some specific exemptions, the policies prevented families on welfare from claiming child support for more than two children.<\/p>\n They also made sure that annual income on benefits would not supersede income that could be made through work.<\/p>\n Child poverty experts point to the two-child limit as being a significant contributor to the rise in child poverty \u2013 which has become increasingly concentrated among large families since 2017.<\/p>\n The decision to scrap it, which came after sustained pressure from Labour<\/a> MPs, has been praised by campaigners \u2013 but ministers have been warned that all families should be able to feel the financial benefit.<\/p>\n Dan Paskins, from Save the Children, told The i Paper: \u201cWith this landmark Bill now going through Parliament, the UK is one step closer to lifting 450,000 children out of poverty in the shortest time possible.\u201d<\/p>\n Paskins, executive director for UK impact at the organisation, added: \u201cA small proportion of families will remain impacted by the benefit cap, which is something we know ministers are aware of and we hope can be addressed in due course, as these changes must be felt by all families.<\/p>\n \t\tYour next read<\/p>\n \tradio_button_checked \u201cBut after years and years of child poverty rates spiralling upwards to a record high of 4.5 million the UK Government is to be applauded for making life better for thousands of children by scrapping the two child limit to benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n The Conservative Party<\/a> and Reform UK<\/a> will vote against the bill at its second reading but the legislation is still expected to pass to the next stage.<\/p>\n A Government spokesperson said: \u201cOur Child Poverty Strategy will lift 550,000 children out of poverty by 2030 \u2013 the biggest reduction in a single parliament.<\/p>\n \u201cScrapping the two-child limit is just one of the ways we\u2019re helping to lift children out of poverty, alongside measures including extending Free School Meals, boosting the national living wage, cutting energy bills by \u00a3150 and launching our \u00a31bn Crisis and Resilience Fund to support families in need.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Government impact assessment found tens of thousands of households will not fully benefit when the cap is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[151013,84,4180,101821,4176,4174,4175,1394,1445,2142,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-404814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-benefit-cap","tag-business","tag-child-benefit","tag-child-poverty","tag-finance","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-politics-news","tag-rachel-reeves","tag-sir-keir-starmer","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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