Two-child benefit cap to be scrapped in Scotland as Labour challenged to ‘step up’ and follow suit

Campaigners have urged Westminster to “step up” as the Scottish government has vowed to scrap the widely derided two-child benefit cap.

Scottish finance secretary Shona Robison announced during her draft budget at Holyrood that the “pernicious” two-child benefit cap “will be scrapped”, and SNP ministers would aim to provide funding to affected families by 2026.

The two-child benefit cap is a controversial policy which was first introduced across the UK by the Conservatives. It means that families claiming universal credit or child tax credit do not receive additional amounts for their third child or subsequent children born after 5 April, 2017. Robison explained that the benefits cap affected 15,000 children in Scotland, and challenged Labour to back the move to scrap it.

“My challenge to Labour is to work with us – join us in ending the cap in Scotland, give us the information that we need,” she said. “But either way, let me be crystal clear, this government is to end the two-child cap and in doing so will lift over 15,000 Scottish children out of poverty.”

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Scotland’s pledge to scrap the two-child limit, which was introduced by the Conservative government in 2017, comes as a report found that axing the cap would be the “single most cost-effective way” of reducing child poverty in the UK.

The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), which estimates that abolishing the two-child limit would lift 300,000 children out of poverty in the UK, stated that there is “no justification” for the Labour government not to remove the cap.

“The Scottish government has made the right decision, but Westminster must now step up and scrap the two-child limit UK-wide,” chief executive of CPAG, Alison Garnham, said.

“There can be no justification now for Westminster dragging its feet and continuing to roll out poverty to more and more children through this policy from the austerity era. 

“If the prime minister wants families to feel improvements in their living standards, the policy must be scrapped when the government’s child poverty task force reports in Spring.”

Poverty charity the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) added that the Scottish government’s promise to scrap the policy “is a positive recognition that this is a policy that increases poverty, leaving families cold and parents skipping meals to try to make budgets stretch”.

“Tough choices come down to priorities, and UK Government ministers should pay close attention,” JRF’s principal policy adviser Katie Schmuecker said.

“We wouldn’t turn a sick child away from hospital or stop a child going to school, yet the two-child limit denies some children support from our social security system. A child poverty strategy that keeps this policy in place would not be credible.”

Maeve McGoldrick, head of policy and communications for Crisis in Scotland, said that scrapping the two-child limit will alleviate homelessness in Scotland.

“Acting to mitigate the impact of the two-child cap on welfare support will reduce levels of child poverty and stop more people from forced into the trauma and indignity of homelessness,” she said.

“Homelessness is not inevitable – with the right political commitment we can end it, and build a Scotland where everyone has a safe, secure place to call home.”

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