An anti-poverty campaigner says Salford children are going hungry because of the two-child benefit cap, weeks after Rebecca Long-Bailey voted in the Commons to scrap the policy.
Sarah Whitehead, the lead facilitator at Salford Poverty Trust Commission, is hoping for an end to the cap, which she believes is putting Salford families at risk.
She knows of many families with more than two children whose physical and mental health is suffering due to the limit on child benefit.
She said the cap, introduced in 2017, is supported by people without a full understanding of the impact that it has on children, and it has increased the stigma faced by parents with several children, particularly the mothers.
In Salford, 39% of children live in poverty and 25% of children live in a family affected by the two-child cap, compared to 31% of children across the whole of the UK living in poverty.
Lifting the cap would take hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty and is supported by Salford MP Rebecca Long Bailey and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham.
And ministers have suggested that the policy – introduced by the previous Conservative government – could be lifted in November’s Budget.
The government is facing growing pressure from its own MPs to end the cap, which prevents most families from claiming means-tested benefits for any third or additional children born after April 2017.
Salford MP Rebecca Long-Bailey was among seven Labour MPs to support a bid by the SNP to scrap the two-child benefit cap in the Commons on September 17.
End Child Poverty Coalition is a group of 135 organisations that believe child poverty in the UK isn’t inevitable.
Rachel Walters, the coordinator, said the cap pulls 109 children into poverty every day in the UK.
She said: “It is actually the result of government action, or inaction, that means children are pushed into poverty.”
She tells the story of a mother who struggles due to the two-child benefit cap.
Rachel said: “The impact that it has on children is what we should be focusing on here.”
End Child Poverty are looking for young people who have struggled with child poverty to become youth ambassadors. Applications are now open on their website.
David Beck, lecturer of social policy at the University of Salford and also their representative for Resolve Poverty, said, “In Greater Manchester, 37% of children live in poverty whereas in the poorest part of Wales child poverty is only 29%.”
He said: “We’ve got quite a centrist, quite neo-liberal labour government and what we’ve seen is this shift in political attitudes from left to central; a left wing government maintaining right wing policies.”
Because of this, he said that while he is hopeful for the removal of the cap, similarly to Sarah Whitehead and Rachel Walters, he is unsure of its likelihood.
Keir Starmer is under growing pressure to scrap the two-child benefit cap.
His own government Child Poverty Taskforce is expected to reveal that removing the cap would be the most effective measure to reduce child poverty.
Starmer has accepted that child poverty is one of the UK’s biggest issues, but removing it would cost around £3 billion annually.
With him being under pressure to plug a £20-30 billion gap in public finances, his current stance on removing the cap is unknown.
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