I’M glad the UK Government has finally agreed with what the SNP, and a number of organisations and agencies, have been telling them for four years: that the two-child policy is cruel and unjustifiable.
Whilst it’s encouraging that some of the flaws in this policy have been recognised, the two-child cap is still deeply problematic. It is already affecting some 400,000 children who will not be helped by this announcement. It has been condemned by Philip Alston, the UN rapporteur on extreme poverty, as well as a multitude of children’s charities and welfare advice professionals. It is discriminatory at its core, hitting religious minorities hardest, a fact which the DWP is well aware of.
READ MORE: Amber Rudd in U-turn on the two-child benefit cap
The risk with what the UK Government is now proposing is that two classes of family emerge; those with third or subsequent children born after the 6th of April 2017 who will continue to fall victim to the two child policy, and those with children born before who won’t.
Those born after April 6, 2017 will still be subject to the pernicious rape clause and forced to fight for exemptions to feed their kids. This will cause confusion and perpetuate unfairness, and ministers must undertake to address this disparity.
Given the concessions that the Secretary of State has made, I hope that she will do the right thing and accept that the only way to deal fairly and properly with this inconsistency is to scrap the two-child policy for everyone.
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Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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