New child poverty taskforce already facing calls to scrap two-child benefit cap
The Government unveiled its new taskforce shortly after the King’s Speech on Wednesday.
Ministers charged with tackling child poverty have already faced calls to scrap the two-child benefit limit before their new taskforce has even met for the first time.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall met child poverty charities on Wednesday morning to hear their views ahead of the announcement of the new taskforce that will develop Labour’s promised child poverty strategy.
But on the same day, many of those charities reiterated calls to abolish the two-child benefit cap that affects some 1.6 million children.
They included Save the Children, which described the limit as “cruel”, and members of the Children’s Charities Coalition, who called the cap “devastating”.
Labour has faced consistent pressure to scrap the limit since before the election, from charities and its own backbenchers, with some reported to be considering backing an amendment to the King’s Speech calling for the policy to be abolished.
Calls to abolish the two-child limit come against the background of rising child poverty, with more than four million children now living in low-income households.
But the party leadership has so far resisted such calls, claiming the fiscal situation means the cap cannot be abolished unless economic growth is secured first.
