Universal Credit and Child Tax Credit: Two-child Limit

Danielle Rowley Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Danielle Rowley (Midlothian) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) for securing this very important debate and for highlighting the appalling impact of the policy. Her speech was very emotional. She covered the exemptions very well, so I will not touch on those because time is tight, but I want to voice my disgust at the rape clause and echo what she said in her speech about how unfair and unjust the other exemptions are. We agree that the Tory cuts are abhorrent and must be scrapped immediately.

In 2018-19, families with three children will lose up to £2,780 each year per child who does not qualify. I am not sure what impact that would have on some Cabinet members, but for families in my constituency in Midlothian it will have a massive and detrimental impact on their lives. An Institute for Fiscal Studies study from last year estimated that relative child poverty would increase over the next four years by 7%. It highlighted the two-child limit as a major factor in that rise. The Government’s own impact assessment in 2015—there have not been any more recent impact assessments—in the section entitled “Impact on protected groups”, acknowledges that the policy will probably have a disproportionate impact on women, ethnic minorities and people with other protected characteristics, yet there are no measures set out by the Government to mitigate that impact.

We have heard about the retroactive element of the policy. Households with three or more children who make a new claim will be required, as of February 2019, to claim universal credit, so they will be impacted by that and affected by the two-child limit, even if their child was born before April 2017. The hon. Member for Glasgow Central highlighted a letter from a constituent and the absurdity of the impact. Last month, I asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how the retrospective implementation of the policy would

“encourage families to reflect carefully on their readiness to support an additional child”,

which is one of the stated aims of the policy, but I was given no coherent answer. Will the Minister answer that for me today? Scottish Labour would scrap the two-child cap in the upcoming Scottish Budget. That what is we will call for.

[Ged Killen (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) is absolutely right to get stuck into the Government over this abhorrent policy? As in the case of the bedroom tax, if there is anything at all that the Scottish Government can do to help, we simply cannot and must not look our constituents in the eye and say, “We can act, but we are not going to because we should not have to.”

[Danielle Rowley]

I agree with my hon. Friend.

[Carol Monaghan]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Danielle Rowley]

I only have two minutes left, so I must press on.

The SNP have argued against covering for Tory welfare reform, and I agree that it should not exist in the first place; but such political posturing helps no one. The powers of the Scottish Parliament should be used to stop families struggling.

[Angela Crawley]

On that point, will the hon. Lady give way?

[Danielle Rowley]

I am sorry, but I must press on. I am quite confused about SNP policy, because the hon. Member for Glasgow Central said she cares about families and children across the UK and wants the policy to be stopped across the UK; but the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) said that the only way to end the situation was independence for Scotland. I should like to know whether they care about people across the UK, or only about people in Scotland.

[Angela Crawley]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Danielle Rowley]

I will not. I want to ask the Minister how he thinks the retroactive application of the policy will affect families who already have more than two children. How will it achieve the policy’s stated aim of making the system fairer and changing people’s financial choices about having children? In addition, there is no evidence that that would happen. What steps are being taken to ensure that women, ethnic minorities and other protected groups are not affected disproportionately by the cap? Have the Government made any assessment of the mental health and wellbeing impact of the policy?

The policy pushes more children into poverty. It targets women with no real assessment, and it is a good example of the Government engineering society to punish the less privileged for having children.

[Several hon. Members rose—]