Child Poverty Action Group, Age UK and Save the Children have produced a joint briefing on the importance of uprating all benefits and the state pension in line with inflation.
Our vision sets out how the childcare system can, and must, increase family incomes, reduce the costs families face and improve the life chances of all our children.
Removing the cap would mean an additional £65 a week, on average, in the pockets of capped households, meaning an average capped couple with 2 children would be £85 below the poverty line.
The Front-loaded Child Benefit Bill is a Private Members’ Bill introduced by Lord Farmer (Conservative). It aims to allow recipients of child benefit to receive, if they wish, a higher rate of child benefit when a child is younger, in exchange for a lower rate when the child is older. This would be an alternative to the current system whereby a flat rate is paid throughout childhood. The second reading will take place on Friday 8 July.
The Universal Credit (Removal of the Two Child Limit) Bill is a Private Members’ Bill brought forward by the Lord Bishop of Durham to remove the limit in universal credit (UC) that restricts support to just the first two children in a family. The second reading will take place on Friday 8 July.
New statistics released today show that 120,000 households were subject to the benefit cap in February 2022. The benefit cap limits the amount of social security some households receive, with families losing £236 a month, on average.
This briefing summaries the findings of two papers from the Benefit Changes and Larger Families research study which explore whether the two-child limit has affected families’ decisions about how many children to have.