Number of children affected by two-child benefit cap to rise by a third over next five years
dailyrecord.co.ukThe number of children affected by the two-child benefit cap will rise by a third over the next five years, a think tank has warned.The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said 250,000 more children across the UK will be affected in the next year alone.
This will increase to 670,000 by the end of the next parliament.The limit currently affects two million children, with more hit each year because it applies to those born after April 5 2017.The policy was announced by Tory George Osborne when he was Chancellor a decade go.
It limits Universal Credit and child tax credits to the first two children.Scottish Labour has regularly said they want to scrap the cap, but UK Labour leader Keir Starmer has so far refused to commit to getting rid of it.Former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also called for the limit to be scrapped.The SNP has claimed Starmer "will push thousands of Scottish children into poverty by extending Tory welfare cuts".When fully rolled out, the cap will affect one in five children.
This rises to 38 per cent of those in the poorest fifth of households..The IFS said that 43 per cent of children in households with at least one person of Bangladeshi or Pakistani origin will be affected.Affected households on average will lose £4,300 per year, representing 10% of their income, according to the analysis.The introduction of the cap has helped drive up the share of children in large families who are in relative poverty from 35 per cent in 2014-15 to 46 per cent in 2022–23.
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