two-child limit

The UK’s social security system falls way below international human rights standards: new report

Spread the love
9to9studio/Shutterstock

Koldo Casla, University of Essex

The right to social security is enshrined in several international agreements on human rights. But the UK’s system – even before the disability benefits cuts announced earlier this year – falls way below these standards.

For a new report published today, Amnesty International asked my colleague Lyle Barker and me to review the evidence about the state of the UK’s social security in relation to international human rights law.

The UK has signed and ratified a number of international agreements on human rights. One of these is the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which lays out the right to social security. An accompanying document defines the three key principles of this right as:

  • Availability A social security system established in law, administered publicly, and materially reachable by those who need it.
  • Adequacy Benefits must be suitable, both in amount and in duration, to realise essential socioeconomic rights.
  • Accessibility Everyone should be covered by the social security system, paying particular attention to disadvantaged and marginalised individuals and groups.

The conclusion of our study for Amnesty International is crystal clear: even disregarding the cuts announced in March, the UK’s social security system does not meet these standards.

Availability

Our review of the literature shows a widespread underclaiming of benefits. It has been estimated that in 2024, £22.7 billion in income-related benefits went unclaimed, a £4 billion increase from the previous year.

Gaps in official data hinder a clear understanding of why many people are missing out on the support they are entitled to. But qualitative evidence suggests this is largely due to fear, stigma, bureaucratic and digital hurdles, and eligibility cliff edges for means-tested benefits.

In recent years, the UK government has adopted a contentious and punitive stance toward benefit recipients. Media and political rhetoric have portrayed those who claim benefits as idle or undeserving scroungers.

This stigma harms the mental health and self-esteem of people experiencing poverty. It can result in shame and secrecy, and create barriers to people accessing support they are entitled to.

Our research for Amnesty International concludes that UK claimants do not get enough information and support about their rights to benefits. Combined with the stigma of claiming, the UK is falling far short of making benefits “available” in line with international standards.

Adequacy

Since the austerity policies of the 2010s, the UK’s social security system has become significantly less adequate in supporting vulnerable people and families. The basic rate of universal credit (the main benefit for working-age people on a low income) is at 40-year low in real terms amid a cost of living crisis.

Restrictive policies, such as the benefit cap (introduced in 2013 to set a maximum limit to the total benefits received by a household) and the two-child limit have curtailed access to essential benefits. Although inflation adjustments in the last two years provided some relief, many benefits still fail to keep up with rising living costs.

The two-child limit is the cruellest expression of the inadequacy of the UK’s social security system. Introduced by the Conservative government in 2017, the two-child limit restricts financial support through universal credit to two children. It is likely to be the most significant single cause of child poverty in the UK, including in families where adults work but do not earn enough to make ends meet.

When Labour returned to power, there was much speculation about whether they would reverse the two-child limit. But despite pleas from experts and people with direct experience, the government has persisted in retaining it.

Accessibility

Our study lays out the many barriers to accessibility in the UK’s system. For example, the bureaucratic hurdles in the assessment process, and the disproportionate impact of punitive sanctions on lone mothers and on minority ethnic claimants.

The UK operates a benefits sanction regime, which imposes penalties on claimants who fail to meet certain conditions. These include attending jobcentre appointments or accepting job offers. In general, sanctions and the fear of sanctions erode the trust between benefit claimants and the social security system.

An adult holding a child's hand walk past a jobcentre
Benefits sanctions are just one of the barriers to accessing social security. 1000words/Shutterstock

As it did in its previous review in 2016, in February the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recommended that the UK review the use of benefit sanctions to ensure they are used proportionately and are subject to prompt and independent dispute resolution mechanisms.

Another accessibility concern is the shift to a digital-by-default system in the 2010s. While intended to make accessing benefits more efficient, it has become an administrative barrier.

Many people, particularly the elderly and others who are less digitally literate, struggle to navigate the benefits system. It excludes people without reliable internet access, underscoring a digital divide that prevents meaningful access to social security.

Meeting standards

Given the evidence, it is no surprise that earlier this year, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights urged the UK government to assess the cumulative effects of the austerity measures introduced in the 2010s.

In particular, the committee recommended reversing the two-child limit, the benefit cap and the five-week delay for the first universal credit payment, and increasing the budget allocated to social security. These recommendations were made before the changes announced in the spring statement.

To live up to the internationally recognised right to social security, the UK should recognise in law, policy and practice that social security is a human right. And, that it is essential to the fulfilment of other human rights.

Amnesty International recommends the government set up a commission with statutory powers, to produce a strategy for “wholesale reform” of the social security system. The UK must establish a minimum support level and an essentials guarantee, to ensure beneficiaries can consistently meet their basic needs. A good way to start would be abolishing the two-child limit once and for all.

Koldo Casla, Senior Lecturer, Essex Law School, University of Essex

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Continue ReadingThe UK’s social security system falls way below international human rights standards: new report

Our research shows the harm the two-child limit on benefits is doing. Only scrapping it can end this

Spread the love
Malysheva Liudmyla/Shutterstock

Kate Andersen, University of York and Kitty Stewart, London School of Economics and Political Science

Since the UK Labour government took office in summer 2024, calls have intensified to scrap both the “two-child limit” – which restricts support for children through universal credit to two children – and the overall benefit cap. With Chancellor Rachel Reeves resisting this pressure as she tries to manage deteriorating public finances, ways of tweaking the two-child limit policy have been proposed.

But as researchers of child poverty, we have no doubt that the best place to start reducing the high and rising numbers of children growing up in poverty in Britain today is by fully abolishing the two-child limit and the benefit cap.

We argue that both policies are astoundingly unfair. As our four-year research programme has documented, both are causing wide-ranging harm to children. They restrict children’s everyday experiences and damage their ability to thrive – which in the long run affects everyone in the UK.

Children live in poverty because their families don’t have an adequate income. This is partly a simple question of maths: wages don’t adjust when there are more mouths to feed. It’s also partly because things happen unexpectedly for some families – job loss, disability, relationship breakdown – leaving them needing extra support for a period of time.

Countries across Europe respond to these dual challenges by providing financial support that adjusts to family needs. Until recently, the UK did too. Indeed, the UK welfare state was one of the pioneers of “family allowances” in the post-war period.

But since 2017, the UK has reformed the system so that in families with three or more children, the support on offer when things go wrong deliberately and explicitly falls far short of what is needed. The UK’s two-child limit, an approach that differs to other countries in Europe, restricts means-tested support to two children in a family only. It bakes child poverty into the fibre of the UK.

Its sister policy, the benefit cap, limits the maximum benefit amount available to households without adults in work. This removes further help from some of the most vulnerable.

Want more politics coverage from academic experts? Every week, we bring you informed analysis of developments in government and fact check the claims being made.

Sign up for our weekly politics newsletter, delivered every Friday.

Struggling to get by

The parents we spoke to frequently talked of difficulties in affording basic necessities for their children, including clothes and food. Many parents had resorted to using foodbanks or cut back on food spending.

The material impacts also affected children’s education and their social and emotional wellbeing. Jessica is a single mum of four. Her business went under during the pandemic and her partner left the household, leaving her affected by both the two-child limit and the benefit cap.

When a hole appeared in Jessica’s daughter’s school shoes, there was no money to replace them straight away. Her daughter went to school wearing trainers and was put in isolation for not adhering to the dress code. Jessica explained:

I got the phone call to say she had to go into isolation and, and things and I just said, “I’m not the type of person that just has £20 sat in the bank” … it was kind of a bit public shaming her really, taking her away and putting her in isolation.

Our interviews also showed that, despite parents’ best efforts to shield them, children are often aware of household financial hardship and in turn try to protect their parents. Christina, a mum of three affected by the two-child limit, said of her middle child:

He won’t say he needs new clothes and he won’t say his shoes don’t fit anymore … I think he’s got it into his head now that we can’t go out and spend or he can’t ask, and I feel so bad for that.

Our research also documents the importance of abolishing the benefit cap alongside the two-child limit. Otherwise, some families affected by the two-child limit won’t see much financial gain, while others will be newly pushed into the benefit cap.

Complete removal

Suggested alternatives to the full abolition of the two child limit include a “three-child limit”, or an exemption for children under five. These options would undoubtedly help some families, but would leave many of those in the greatest need still struggling.

Girl eating
Families are struggling to get the food they need. Klemzy/Shutterstock

Pound for pound, a three-child limit is less effective at reducing poverty than simple abolition, precisely because it is less well targeted on those in deepest poverty. An exemption for under fives would create a new cliff edge, removing significant support on a child’s fifth birthday, even though we know that the costs of children rise as children get older.

Further, these approaches continue to enforce a separation between what a family needs and its entitlement to support, and therefore will continue to embed child poverty as an institutional feature of our social security system. Children’s life chances will continue to be circumscribed by the number of siblings they have. Given what we know about the long-term costs of child poverty for society, these are short-sighted ways to save money today.

It is very encouraging that the government has committed to a child poverty strategy, and that the prime minister has said he will be “laser focused” on tackling child poverty.

But, as we wait for the strategy to be published, the number of children harmed by the two-child limit rises daily. Nearly two-in-five larger families are now affected and this is predicted to rise to 61% of larger families by the time the two-child limit has full coverage.

If the child poverty strategy is to have real impact, its starting point is straightforward: both the two-child limit and the benefit cap need to go, and urgently, before more damage is done to children’s lives.

Kate Andersen, Research Fellow, School for Business and Society, University of York and Kitty Stewart, Professor, Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Keir Starmer says that his Labour Party is intensely relaxed about assaulting the very poorest and most vulnerable.
Keir Starmer says that his Labour Party is intensely relaxed about assaulting the very poorest and most vulnerable.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Continue ReadingOur research shows the harm the two-child limit on benefits is doing. Only scrapping it can end this

Eradicate child poverty in 20 years, coalition of children’s charities tell government

Spread the love

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/eradicate-child-poverty-20-years-coalition-childrens-charities-say

Stocks of food at the Trussell Trust Brent Foodbank, Neasden, London

A COALITION of 120 children’s charities today called for the complete eradication of child poverty in 20 years, increasing pressure for government to scrap the two-child benefit cap.

The End Child Poverty Coalition set out eight tests it said should be met by the government’s taskforce strategy if it is to succeed in tackling and ending child poverty.

Among them was that government must ultimately aim to halve child poverty in the next 10 years, and completely eradicate it in the next 20.

The coalition also said the two-child limit to benefit payments must be scrapped, estimating this could immediately lift around 300,000 children out of poverty, and that “further fundamental reform” to the social security system is needed.

…

End Child Poverty Coalition chair Joseph Howes said: “Child poverty is a blight on our society and is also completely avoidable.

“If the government is serious about tackling and ultimately eradicating child poverty in this country, it needs to be bold and ambitious in its investments, including immediately scrapping the two-child limit to benefit payments.

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/eradicate-child-poverty-20-years-coalition-childrens-charities-say

Continue ReadingEradicate child poverty in 20 years, coalition of children’s charities tell government

Removing caps on benefits could save the government billions of pounds, study finds

Spread the love
Image of Keir Starmer and a poor child.
Zionist Keir ‘Kid Starver’ Starmer. Image thanks to The Skwawkbox.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/removing-caps-benefits-could-save-government-billions-pounds-study-finds

REMOVING caps on benefits could save the government billions of pounds rather than cost money, a progressive economic think tank says.

The New Economics Foundation (NEF) report, published today, says that the cost of benefit caps could be outweighed by the gains to be made from abolishing them.

Gains include easing extra pressure on the NHS and other services resulting from the poverty caused by the caps, according to the experts.

The benefit cap was introduced in 2013 by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government and limits the amount of benefits a household can receive.

The two-child limit was introduced by the Tory government in 2017. It restricts the application of child tax credit and universal credit to the first two children in households.

The NEF estimates that axing the caps could save £1.5 billion a year over the next five years alone through lower demand on public services.

In the longer term — in 20 or 25 years — children lifted from poverty could have estimated future net earnings of £920 million a year higher, with an extra £490m returned to government through taxation and reduced spending on social security.

“In reducing child poverty rates, pressures on the NHS, schools and social services will reduce, enabling the reallocation of resources to other areas of high demand,” the report states.

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/removing-caps-benefits-could-save-government-billions-pounds-study-finds

Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
Continue ReadingRemoving caps on benefits could save the government billions of pounds, study finds

Scrap two-child benefit cap to end child poverty, Labour told: ‘Good intentions are not enough’

Spread the love

https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/two-child-benefit-cap-poverty-taskforce/

The new Labour government has promised an ‘ambitious plan’ to end child poverty, but it is yet to commit to ending the two-child limit

The new Labour government has launched a taskforce to work towards ending child poverty, but charities have warned that “good intentions are not enough” as they ramp up calls for the two-child benefit cap to be scrapped.

Keir Starmer’s party has promised an “ambitious” plan for ending child poverty, but it has so far refused to commit to removing the two-child limit, which is also referred to as the two-child benefit cap and has been described as “one of the cruellest welfare policies of the past decade”.

It means that families who have a third child or subsequent children born after April 2017 are denied up to £3,500 a year compared with those whose children were born sooner.

…

Alison Garnham, chief executive of Child Poverty Action Group, said: “The taskforce is a welcome first step towards fulfilling the government’s pledge to bring in an ambitious child poverty strategy.  

“But with a record number of kids in poverty now, scrapping the two-child limit on benefits has to happen in the government’s first budget.  The two-child limit is driving up child poverty more than any other policy, children need it to be removed as a priority.”

https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/two-child-benefit-cap-poverty-taskforce/

Continue ReadingScrap two-child benefit cap to end child poverty, Labour told: ‘Good intentions are not enough’