Universal Credit: Children

(asked on 31st March 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of the immediate removal of the two child limit for the Universal Credit Child Element for all claimants to enable Ukrainian nationals arriving in the UK are not (a) subject to limitations in available family support, and (b) made to disclose if they have being the victims of sexual violence used as a weapon of war in order to receive support for any children who may have being conceived in non-consensual conception above the two child limit.


Answered by
David Rutley Portrait
David Rutley
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
This question was answered on 28th April 2022

No assessment has been made. The policy applies to all children born on or after 6 April 2017 regardless of the nationality of the child.

We recognise that some claimants are not able to make the same choices about the number of children in their family.

That is why exceptions have been put in place to protect certain groups, including those likely to have been born as a result of non-consensual conception. This includes rape or where the claimant was in a controlling or coercive relationship with the child’s other biological parent at the time of conception. In this case, before a claim is approved, claimants are asked to contact a suitable third-party professional who can confirm the claimant’s circumstances, as described by them, are consistent with the criteria for the exception. The third-party professional does not judge the credibility of the claimant’s statement or require any further evidence.

Furthermore, On 9th July 2021, the Supreme Court handed down the judicial review judgement on the two-child Policy. The court found the two-child Policy lawful and not in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

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