Two mothers in the UK, Thea Jaffe and Kirsty Murray, both have three children, but their lives are affected differently by policies on benefits. The Conservative Party introduced a policy in 2017 that meant any third or subsequent child born after April 2017 would not receive full support from the benefits system, only the government’s child benefit payment of £16.95 a week, which drastically affects families. Thea, who is an account development manager for a logistics firm in North London, earns £43,000 a year, but the impact of the two-child cap means that almost half her salary goes towards rent, food, energy costs, and other household expenditures, leaving her little for small luxuries.
Kirsty, who lives in Cumbernauld, Scotland, works for a charity, and her husband works as a personal support worker for people with disabilities. Two of their three children, Rebekah and David, have additional needs, so the family’s total income of £25,000 is often stretched. However, the Scottish Child Payment, introduced by the Scottish government in 2021, pays the family £213.60 every four weeks for their two daughters; David’s payment stopped when he turned 16. The payment has cross-party political support in Scotland since it is helping reduce pressure on families with low incomes.
The Children’s Commissioner for Wales has also called for the Welsh government to copy the Scottish Child Payment, but there has been no indication from the new Labour government suggesting it would follow suit. The new government insists that it cannot afford to scrap the two-child limit, which would cost over £3bn. The UK Prime Minister argues that dealing with child poverty requires a comprehensive strategy that tackles multiple policies and is not focused only on one policy.
According to Professor Ruth Patrick, a social policy expert at York University, reforming the UK’s welfare system is crucial to addressing child poverty. In her view, the evidence shows that social security investment is the fundamental answer to tackling child poverty. The previous Labour government made significant progress on reducing child poverty, decreasing the number of children living in relative poverty by 1.1m between 1998/99 and 2010/11. The Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank found that one of the key factors that contributed to the decline in child poverty was an £18bn annual increase in spending on benefits for families with children.
In conclusion, Thea and Kirsty’s stories highlight how different policies affect families’ lives in the UK. The two-child cap policy affects approximately 440,000 households with 1.6 million children between them in the UK, but the Scottish Child Payment has alleviated the policy’s impact in Scotland. While the new UK government’s comprehensive approach to tackling child poverty is an admirable goal, the evidence indicates that a robust social security system is central to addressing the problem and eventually breaking the cycle of poverty in the UK
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