Cruel DWP Universal Credit rule will see 'thousands' of families dragged in

A cruel Department for Work and Pensions benefits cap will hit hundreds of thousand more families losing £4,300 a year. The DWP two-child benefits cap for Child Tax Credit and Universal Credit claimants will see more and more dragged in.

The number affected is set to increase by a third, according to figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). Claimant households could lose £4,300 a year in benefits because of the cap, a 10 per cent cut in their income, the IFS warned.

Eduin Latimer, an IFS research economist, said: "The two-child limit is one of the most significant welfare cuts since 2010 and, unlike many of those cuts, it becomes more important each year as it is rolled out to more families."

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Mubin Haq, CEO of the abrdn Financial Fairness Trust, commented: "The limit has been a significant contributor to child poverty amongst large families during a period when poverty for families with one or two children fell.

"If the next Government is serious about tackling child poverty, it will need to review the two-child limit." Paul Carberry, chief executive at Action for Children, stated: "Here is yet more shocking evidence of the huge scale of the damage being caused to children and families by the cruel two-child limit, which is well known to push families into poverty and, which if scrapped, would lift 300,000 children out of hardship.

"The election presents an opportunity for bold and ambitious action to be taken and for all political parties to commit to ending child poverty once and for all. That must include an increase to the child element of Universal Credit and scrapping the two-child limit and benefit cap."

The two-child benefit cap, which restricts Child Tax Credit and Universal Credit to the first two children, was brought in by the Conservative government in 2017. Campaigners have long called for it to be abolished on the grounds it would lift thousands of children out of poverty.