PCS supports MP’s amendment to scrap two-child benefit cap

The king will present a speech in the House of Lords outlining the incoming Labour government’s priorities for the coming period. Kim Johnson MP’s amendment is welcomed by PCS as an important challenge to this policy which has already had the impact of plunging 250,000 children into poverty.

PCS has long fought against the implementation of the two-child benefit cap which was introduced in 2017, restricting child tax credit and universal credit to the first two children in most households. Families are refused the ability to claim approximately £3,200 a year per extra child due to this policy. This falls not only on unemployed workers, but those in employment that are forced to claim benefit also. PCS has campaigned for the removal of the cap.

Angela Grant PCS DWP group president says, “PCS applauds Kim Johnson’s long commitment to rid society of this pernicious and punitive policy. It is encouraging to see that Kim has taken the immediate opportunity of the King’s Speech to lodge an amendment that will at this early stage show where the Labour leadership’s priorities lie. The previous government used the child maintenance system to bring in more money for more children, whilst taking money from those very same children by imposing the two-child cap. It is incredibly important that this issue is now back in the spotlight.  If Kim’s amendment is not accepted, history will judge Labour as being as culpable as their predecessors for punishing hundreds of thousands of the poorest children in society by holding them in a poverty trap.

The end of the two-child benefit cap would be a move towards ending the child poverty that Labour professes to want to end. We urge every MP with a conscience to support this important amendment”.