It’s time for the government to scrap the two-child benefit cap – we can’t afford not to

As anyone who works with children and families daily can attest, the scale and intensity of hardship experienced by far too many remains deeply shocking. 4.5 million children are now paying the price of poverty. This is indefensible – a scar on our national conscience, as Gordon Brown powerfully put it.

Soon the government will finalise its child poverty strategy, following a downpayment at the spending review that included expanding free school meals and new money for social housebuilding. Whether this government will scrap the two-child limit is regarded as a critical test of its commitment to driving down child poverty. New figures confirm that the cap now affects almost 1.7 million children, which will only rise further and push more children into poverty for every day it remains in place.

Media reports suggest the prime minister wants to see the two-child limit scrapped in full, yet some government sources are briefing this now won’t be possible after cuts to disability benefits fell apart. If Labour wants to go into the next election with child poverty falling, it cannot trade one group of the poor and vulnerable off against another.

At the same time, an old debate has resurfaced, asking whether cash handouts can really tackle the ‘root causes’ of poverty. Some Labour voices have suggested prioritising investment in services like Sure Start over scrapping the two-child benefit cap, the main driver of rising child poverty. Former work and pensions secretary David Blunkett has similarly advocated for “helping [families] to help themselves”.

Read more:

• I’m buying fruit and veg for my kids on ‘buy now, pay later’. The two-child benefit cap needs to go
• Scrap two-child benefit cap if you’re serious about child poverty, Rachel Reeves told
• Labour’s new Family Hubs are the ‘successor’ to Sure Start. As child poverty rises, will they work?

At Action for Children, we warmly welcomed the education secretary’s announcement of £500 million to expand the family hubs programme to every local authority in England. Building on the proud legacy of Sure Start, it’s clear this government recognises the value of preventative services. But as an answer to child poverty, it is only one piece of a larger puzzle.

This question of whether cash or services is best for reducing poverty is not new. Jonathan Bradshaw, one of the country’s foremost poverty scholars, addressed it head-on in the New Statesman 13 years ago as debate raged over the last child poverty strategy, where he argued for investing in children across the board.

Action for Children is a leading provider of family support services and many of my colleagues have been here since the Sure Start days. You will find no greater believers in the transformative power of children’s centres, family hubs and parenting support than the dedicated frontline workers that deliver our services to thousands of children, families and young people every day.

But they know that, as an answer to child poverty, a choice between cash or services is a false one. Practitioners in our centres must routinely prioritise delivering immediate crisis help before they can even think about the support interventions that the service is commissioned to provide: 79% of our frontline staff are supporting a family or young person in extreme financial hardship, and 97% say that poverty is an important factor in the non-financial challenges faced by their families.

Services do have a vital role to play in addressing child poverty. Our support workers provide direct relief to families in crisis – securing emergency grants from our Family Fund, advocating on their behalf with utility companies or helping them to apply for benefits. Through early intervention, we help families with more complex challenges that can drive and entrench poverty by building parental skills and confidence and strengthening family resilience.

But this is made much harder if families are so poverty-stricken they can’t focus on anything but their immediate survival. We see how families that are hungry, cold and lacking essentials can struggle to engage fully with the support offered by family hubs or parenting programmes, let alone be in a position to find work or take on more hours.

There is nothing inevitable about child poverty. Those who study its causes and solutions know that the countries that perform best are those that prioritise access to affordable childcare, good quality family services, housing that people can afford and opportunities for decent, stable employment.

Above all, direct financial support is critical to lifting children out of poverty. This is not just a short-term fix. For children to achieve the better outcomes that evidence shows good services can provide, we must equip them with the resources they need to succeed by supporting family incomes throughout childhood. Social security is therefore just as much a long-term strategy for preventing poverty and investing in the next generation as it is about providing an immediate safety net.

The answer then to that persistent question of cash or services is obvious: it must be both. By investing in children, we can transform life chances and boost the economy. It’s time to pay the price of reducing child poverty – we can’t afford not to.

Scott Compton is senior policy advisor at Action for Children. actionforchildren.org.uk

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