Thank you for contacting me about the cap which restricts Child Tax Credit and Universal Credit to the first two children in a family.
I recognise your concerns about child poverty. No child should be forced to grow up in poverty.
I believe that supporting families and helping parents into work requires a balanced system that provides support for those who need it, but that also ensures a sense of fairness to the taxpayer and the many families who do not see their incomes rise when they have more children.
I further believe that the previous benefits structure, which adjusted automatically to family size, was unsustainable. Moreover, recent statistics show that 78 per cent of families on Universal Credit (UC) had fewer than three children.
I welcome, however, that support is provided through Child Tax Credit and Universal Credit for a maximum of two children. I understand that the same policy does not apply to help with childcare costs, passported benefits (for example, free school meals), additional support for any disabled children or Child Benefit.
Please be assured that I recognise that some people are not able to make the same choices about the number of children in their family, therefore there is further support for third and subsequent children born after April 2017 in certain circumstances. This includes children cared for by family or close friends under kinship care arrangements, children adopted from local authority care, and multiple births.
I am proud of the record of the previous Government on child poverty more generally, which invested up to £40 million through its National School Breakfast Programme, to support up to 2,700 schools in disadvantaged areas to provide nutritious breakfasts. It expanded the eligibility to more groups of children than any Government in the past 50 years, meaning thousands of children from low-income families are now supported. It also doubled the number of children receiving free school meals between 2010 and 2024, having extended eligibility several times to more groups of children. As a result, around 2 million pupils are eligible for and claim a free school meal, saving families over £480 a year for each child.
These continue to be much concern about the cost of living which Is making life tougher for families across the countries. It is disappointing therefore the labour government fails to get inflation under control, pushing up taxes, and making people worse off.
I also believe more needs to be done to ensure our entire welfare system reflects the modern world of work, helps people into the jobs that are right for them and is set on a sustainable path for the taxpayer. The welfare system must be balanced between providing strong work incentives and support for those who need it alongside being sustainable and fair to the people we are asking to pay for it. Currently, welfare costs are spiralling out of control and I am greatly concerned the pool of taxpayers contributing to the system is rapidly shrinking even as the demands upon it are increasing.
While I am firmly committed to supporting families, I am clear the best way to reduce child poverty centres on the clear evidence that parental employment is proven to substantially reduce the risk of poverty. I therefore continue to call on the Labour Government to help parents into work as the best way to ensure people can support their own households.
Mims Davies MP Statement on Welfare Reform | Mims Davies
The rules on welfare entitlement for families with more than two children is a part of that important balance of fairness and support. The historic benefits structure, which adjusted automatically to family size, proved to be unsustainable as well as unfair to many working families who do not see their incomes rise if they choose to have more children. Moreover, recent statistics show that 78 per cent of families on Universal Credit (UC) had fewer than three children.
I welcome support is provided through Child Tax Credit and UC for a maximum of two children and understand that additional financial help is available for childcare costs, passported benefits (for example, free school meals), additional support for any disabled children or Child Benefit.
While parenthood is, in the main, a chosen responsibility, I do recognise some people are not able to make choices about the number of children in their family, and I welcome full support for third and subsequent children born after April 2017 in certain circumstances. This includes children cared for by family or close friends under kinship care arrangements, children adopted from local authority care, and multiple births.
I contest the notion the Two Child Policy has been a primary factor in the number of women receiving abortions and am currently working with colleagues in the Shadow Team on the issue of rising abortion rates, even as education and access to family planning and contraception improves. The previous Government also took significant steps to mitigate financial challenges facing families which in many cases would have been greater than the impact of this policy.
I am proud of the record of the previous Government on child poverty more generally, which invested up to £40 million through its National School Breakfast Programme, to support up to 2,700 schools in disadvantaged areas to provide nutritious breakfasts. It expanded the eligibility to more groups of children than any Government in the past 50 years, meaning thousands of children from low-income families are now supported. It also doubled the number of children receiving free school meals between 2010 and 2024, having extended eligibility several times to more groups of children. As a result, around 2 million pupils are eligible for and claim a free school meal, saving families over £480 a year for each child.
I hope the current Government continues the hard work already started in this area and finds more ways we can ensure fairness within the welfare system whilst also ensuring a quality standard of life for families across the United Kingdom.
However, the Government's previous iteration of welfare reform failed to deliver meaningful change, ran counter to their professed child poverty ambitions, and would only have saved less than £5 billion out of a welfare budget projected to hit an eye-watering and unaffordable £100 billion by 2030. With the Government suggesting they are going to revisit welfare reform, the Leader of the Opposition, Kemi Badenoch, has offered Conservative support for measures that genuinely bring down the cost of welfare and get people back to work. A changed welfare system, encouraging and supporting more people into the workplace, rather than leaving many feeling trapped in the system, will have generational influences that lift entire families out of poverty for the long-term.
I understand that the Child Poverty Strategy is due to be published later this year. I shall scrutinise this strategy in further detail once it has been published, and I shall continue to hold the Government to account on their plans to reduce child poverty further.
