Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have been urged to scrap the two-child benefit cap by senior faith leaders, including the Church of England’s current top bishop.
Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell said the failure to tackle child poverty was “deeply shaming for us as a nation” and said the two-child limit was “one of the contributing factors”.
He backed suggestions by former prime minister Gordon Brown to back gambling tax reforms and a levy on banks to fund efforts to ease poverty.
The archbishop told Sky News’ Sunday with Trevor Phillips: “It is simply a shameful scandal that in a wealthy country like ours, there are children every day – I mean, thousands of children every day – going to school hungry. They don’t have a proper mattress to sleep on, have all the stigma and the life-limiting impacts of poverty. It shouldn’t be this way, which I know everyone agrees on.”
The Government’s promised child poverty strategy was originally expected in the spring but it is now due to be published in the autumn, with charities and organisations working in the sector estimating that more than 100 children a day are pulled into poverty.
Asked about the delay in the strategy and the number being dragged into poverty, the archbishop said: “It’s hugely frustrating and it’s deeply shaming for us as a nation.”
He added: “We know that the two-child limit is one of the contributing factors to growing child poverty.”
Other faith leaders have signed an open letter calling on the Prime Minister and the Chancellor to scrap the two-child limit.
The two-child cap was first announced in 2015 by the Conservatives and came into effect in 2017. It restricts child tax credit and universal credit to the first two children in most households.
Another policy, the benefits cap, restricts the total amount of taxpayer-funded support a household can receive.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has estimated the cost of scrapping both would be around £3.3 billion.
The group of 38 senior figures from different faiths, including former archbishop of Canterbury Lord Rowan Williams, said: “It is hard to conceive of an effective child poverty strategy that does not act on the restrictive benefit cap and end the two-child limit.
“Faith groups have challenged the limit on moral grounds, rejecting the state’s abandonment of third and later children, and the poverty this inevitably causes. As many charities and think tanks have now shown, ending the two-child limit is also the most cost-effective way to address child poverty. We believe this must be a priority for your government.”
Revd Richard Andrew, president of the Methodist Conference and a signatory to the letter, said: “This is a cry for change, rooted in our belief that change is possible. Rising levels of child poverty are not inevitable.
“The Government’s pledge to lift children out of poverty during this parliament is welcome, but now it needs to be backed up with real commitments, including scrapping the two-child limit on benefits.”
A Government spokesman said: “Every child – no matter their background – deserves the best start in life. That’s why our child poverty taskforce will publish an ambitious strategy to tackle the structural and root causes of child poverty.
“We are investing £500million in children’s development, extending free school meals and ensuring the poorest don’t go hungry in the holidays through a new £1 billion crisis support package.”
