Two-child Benefit Cap and Child Poverty

Nadia Whittome Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Employment (Guy Opperman)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) on securing the debate and on the passionate way that she put her argument today. That passion cannot be doubted in any way whatsoever and due respect is due to her for that.

The Government believe that the best way to support people’s living standards is through work, better skills and higher wages. I regret to say that I will rely on an answer similar to the one that the Prime Minister gave to the hon. Lady at Prime Minister’s questions. Whether she agrees or disagrees with that answer, I hope that she will bear with me as I give it.

In 2021-22, children living in a household in which all the adults were in work were five times less likely to be in absolute poverty after housing costs than children living in workless households. We believe that we have made progress. In 2021-22, there were 1.7 million fewer people in absolute poverty after housing costs than there were in 2009-10, including, as has been made clear, 400,000 fewer children. There are also nearly 1 million fewer workless households now than there were in 2010.

Following the review of the benefit cap levels by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in November 2022, those levels were increased by 10.1% from April 2023. Let us not forget that households can still receive benefits from the taxpayer up to the equivalent of a salary of £26,500 nationally or £31,300 in London, allowing for London weighting. Also, we uprated the national living wage by 9.7%, increasing our support for both those who are in work and those who are out of work, as well as uprating all benefits by 10.1% in April. That is the largest cash increase ever to the national living wage, which is now up to £10.42 an hour, providing extra support for workers.

Clearly, there are over 1 million vacancies across the UK and our focus is firmly on supporting people into work and helping them to progress in work. That approach is based on clear evidence about the importance of parental employment, particularly where it is full time, in substantially reducing the risks of child poverty.

[Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware of the recent study by the London School of Economics, published last month, that found that the two-child benefit cap policy has not increased employment levels? We can only conclude from that that even on its own terms, the policy is failing while hundreds of thousands of families have been pushed into poverty.

[Guy Opperman]

As I think I have made clear, I do not accept the arguments about poverty. I am not aware of the specific LSE paper that the hon. Lady mentions, but I would make the simple point that in this country we have never given more welfare support or paid higher figures for pensioner support or disability support. Without a shadow of a doubt, there has been massive cost of living support, as I will outline, to the most vulnerable.