‘A disgraceful decision’: Labour council votes against calls to scrap two-child benefit cap
A Labour-run council has voted down a motion to call on the Government to scrap the controversial two-child benefit cap.
Southwark’s Labour Party unanimously voted to block calls from the Liberal Democrats to scrap the cap during a council assembly on March 19.
The two-child benefit cap, which prevents parents from claiming child tax credit or universal credit for more than two children, was introduced by the Conservative Government in 2017.
Data provided by the End Child Poverty Coalition shows that removing the cap would lift 250,000 children across the UK out of poverty.
Liberal Democrat Leader of the Opposition, Cllr Victor Chamberlain, said: “Labour promised to stand up for struggling families but are keeping a cruel Conservative policy that pushes thousands of Southwark children into poverty.
“Every Labour councillor here voted to keep the two-child cap – a disgraceful decision. Even the UN has called on Labour to scrap it, yet they refuse.”
In Southwark, 7,670 children in 2,170 households are currently affected by the two-child limit to benefit payments. That is equivalent to more than 12 per cent of all children in the authority area.
At the same time 23,090 Southwark children are living in poverty – 36.2 per cent of all children in the borough.
Deputy Leader Cllr Rachel Bentley, who seconded the motion, said: “It’s clear that despite a new government, we’re just seeing more of the same, with a Labour party what are trying their best to be more Tory than the Tories”
Responding to the claims Cllr Jasmine Ali, Deputy Leader and Cabinet member for Children, Education and Refugees, blamed “Tory and Lib Dem” austerity for the “spiralling” rates of child poverty in the country.
She said: “Child poverty was halved under the previous Labour government, and the Lib Dems should acknowledge that it was under their watch that things got worse.
“Within months of taking office, Labour announced a Child Poverty Strategy that we have already fed into. Labour puts children and families at the centre of all that we do and we are of course in dialogue with the government about what will work best for Southwark families.
“We will not forget that the Lib Dems wreaked havoc on families in our borough, whereas Labour always improves the lives of those with the least.”
(Picture: Pexels/Towfiqu Barbhuiya)
