There Are Good Reasons To Reverse The Two-child Limit

23rd July 2024

The benefit cap has been pretty much laser-focused on increasing the measured rate of child poverty. Paul Johnson writes for the Times.

It didn't take long for the first rumblings of discontent to be heard on the Labour backbenches. Within days of the election, a number of MPs are already putting pressure on the new government to end the two-child limit, the rule that means most benefit recipients don’t get any extra money for third and subsequent children. While the Liberal Democrats and Greens went into the election pledging to abolish the limit, Labour has said it will do so only when fiscal conditions allow.

It has spent much of the past couple of weeks emphasising the fact that fiscal conditions are very tough indeed. And with good reason. When Rachel Reeves’ public spending audit is published, perhaps this week, no doubt we will be told more about the challenges. Not that we should have been in any doubt about them. Waiting lists, overflowing prisons, a crumbling justice system, overwhelmed local authorities, all have been well-documented by independent observers.

Therein lies the eternal problem facing governments. How to prioritise within limited resources. Ask the Scots. One of the reasons they are really struggling with funding their public services is that they have decided to be much more generous in their benefit payments to poor families with children.

The long-term cost of reversing the two-child limit would be about £3.4 billion a year. That is not a trivial amount of money, but nor is it huge. It is equal to roughly 3 per cent of the total working-age benefit budget. Merely managing to slow down the increase in spending on disability benefits could pay for it. It is less than a fifth of the cost of recent cuts to national insurance contributions. If reversing it were a top priority, it would be affordable. The trouble is there are a lot of top priorities.

Read the full article HERE