This is what life with the DWP’s two-child benefit cap looks like through a child’s eyes

The new Labour government faces growing calls to scrap the two-child limit on benefits, which charities say is “one of the cruellest welfare rules of the past decade”.

It means that low-income families are denied extra universal credit and tax credits for their third and subsequent children born after April 2017. Nearly half a million children could be immediately lifted out of poverty if the government scrapped the benefit cap, according to the Resolution Foundation.

There are 440,000 families impacted by the two-child limit across the UK. As pressure builds on the government ahead of the Autumn Statement, Save the Children gave families affected by the two-child benefit cap disposable cameras for the children to capture moments in their everyday lives and share their world as they see it.

Here are a selection of their snaps, while two mothers impacted by the policy tell us how it affects their lives.

• What is the two-child benefit limit and how does it impact families?
• This is the harsh reality of the two-child benefit cap for families: ‘It’s like wearing a scarlet letter’

Thea lives in London with her children who are nine, two and 10 months

“My family doesn’t qualify for the same distribution of benefits as other families because I’ve had ‘too many children’. There’s this guilt placed on you, like you’re a bad person and you have to face the consequences for the rest of your children’s lives because you messed up.

It just feels like everybody wants to see me as some freeloader who messed up, who thought that the world would take care of the extra child. Parents do not need this messaging.

I find it amazing when people say: ‘Did you know about the two-child limit when you decided to proceed with your pregnancy?’ Would you really plan your family around government policy?

The message we should be getting from the government is: ‘Thank you for caring for these children. Thank you for raising them so that they can become taxpayers with good jobs and perform heart surgery on us when we need it.’”

Read Thea’s story here.

Carol lives in Swindon with her children who are 11, eight and four

“The summer holidays are so hard for families with three or more children. This year, we aren’t having a holiday. We have done things that don’t cost money like Pokémon hunting on my phone and park hopping, where we see how many different parks and free activities we can find. If the two-child benefit cap didn’t exist, this would have made summer easier as we would have been able to enjoy other things the kids want to do like laser quest and trips to the seaside. The cost of food over the summer holidays goes up along with childcare and school stuff so it makes childcare and school stuff so it makes struggling families struggle even more.”

On the photography project:

Carol: I think it was amazing to see what they enjoy and love and what was important to them.

Lucy, 8: It was really good. I was acting like I was a photographer, taking pictures of flowers, cats, bottles and everything.

Mabel, 4: I took pictures of a train and of an orange.

Carol and her children’s names have been changed.

Leanne lives in Manchester with three children who are 12, eight and six

In Manchester, mother-of-three Leanne, receives £584.58 a month for her two eldest sons from universal credit, but not for her daughter, six. Altogether, she is living on £1,200 a month with shopping, gas and electric bills, council tax, water, TV licence coming out of that and travel costs to the local hospital to take one of her sons to various appointments.

Leanne’s name has been changed.

savethechildren.org.uk

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