CHILDREN’S Commissioners in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have urged the UK Government to end the “discriminatory” two-child limit on benefits.
The change was brought in under then-Chancellor George Osborne along with the so-called “rape clause”, which allows child benefit for third or subsequent children only when their mothers have reported that the pregnancy was a result of sexual violence.
In a new letter, Bruce Adamson, the Children and Young People’s Commissioner for Scotland, and his Welsh and Northern Irish counterparts, Sally Holland and Koulla Yiasouma, tell Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey there is “no excuse” for continuing the policy, which they say is a “clear breach of children’s human rights”.
The three commissioners argue that the policy breaches youngsters’ right to an adequate standard of living and is contributing to a rising gap in poverty levels between families with three or more children and smaller households.
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And they say it has a disproportionate impact on some minority faith and ethnic communities, where larger families are more common, as well as in Northern Ireland, where families tend to be larger than the rest of the UK.
The letter states: “Various party manifestos in both the Scottish and Welsh Parliament elections indicate steps that will be taken in the devolved nations towards tackling child poverty, and work has commenced on developing a population-wide anti-poverty strategy in Northern Ireland as part of the New Decade New Approach deal.
"However, we cannot ignore the fact that any such steps are ultimately undermined by the continuation of the harmful two-child limit on child tax credit and universal credit payments at a UK Government level.”
It goes on: “Children should not be penalised for actions beyond their control.”
The letter has been published ahead of today’s session of the UK Parliament’s Work and Pensions Committee today, which will be addressed by Adamson. Speaking ahead of that meeting, he said: “With more than a quarter of a million children affected, poverty is the most significant human rights issue facing children in Scotland.
“Living in poverty affects every aspect of a child’s life, including their educational attainment and mental and physical health.”
Adamson recalled that Philip Alston, the then UN special rapporteur on poverty and human rights, heard directly from youngsters during a visit to Scotland in 2019, saying children told him of the “serious impact that poverty is having on their human rights”.
Saying the situation for children in Scotland has “become much worse” as a result of the pandemic, Adamson said: “The Scottish Government has taken some action to reduce the number of children in poverty including rolling out the Scottish Child Payment during the pandemic, however, I remain concerned that children’s rights are continuing to be breached in Scotland by the two-child limit on child tax credit and universal credit.”
The letter states: “With the focus in the Queen’s speech in May 2021 on ‘levelling up’, there can be no excuse for continuing to breach children’s rights through this discriminatory policy.”
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