Southwark Labour Vote to Back Two Child Benefit Cap
At last night’s council assembly (19th March), the Southwark Labour party unanimously voted to block calls from the Liberal Democrats to scrap the two child benefit cap.
The cap, introduced by the Conservative government in 2017 after being repeatedly blocked by the Liberal Democrats, restricts the amount of child tax credit and Universal Credit that families can receive, limiting support to the first two children in most households.
In Southwark, 7,670 children in 2,170 households are currently affected by the two-child limit to benefit payments. That is equivalent to more than 12% of all children in the authority area. At the same time 23,090 local children are living in poverty – 36.2% of all children in the borough.
Despite pressure from inside and outside the Labour party, the Government has repeatedly refused to lift the 2 child limit. In July last year, the Liberal Democrats used a member’s question to urge the Labour council leader to back their calls ahead of a crunch vote in Parliament, but the leader refused.
In January, Labour controlled Leicester City Council passed a motion calling for the cap to be scrapped.
This comes in the week where the Government is facing backlash over its proposed welfare reforms, which the anti-poverty charity Joseph Rowntree Foundation branded as “unprecedented”, with the cuts being three times bigger than the cut that led then Work and Pension Secretary Iain Duncan Smith to resign in 2016.
Cllr Victor Chamberlain used his question to the leader to push for him to join calls from across the sector to urgently rethink this policy, but the Leader of the Council responded by saying he “hadn’t seen the detail”.
Liberal Democrat Leader of the Opposition Cllr Victor Chamberlain said:
“Labour promised to stand up for struggling families but are keeping a cruel Conservative policy that pushes thousands of Southwark children into poverty. Every Labour councillor here voted to keep the two-child cap – a disgraceful decision. Even the UN has called on Labour to scrap it, yet they refuse. Southwark Labour promised to ‘hold feet to the fire’ but are giving their own government an easy ride. The Liberal Democrats will keep fighting to scrap this unfair policy and lift children out of poverty – because unlike Labour, we actually stand by our principles.”
Deputy Leader Cllr Rachel Bentley, who seconded the motion added:
“In the week where its welfare cuts are being slammed by poverty and disability charities, Labour’s repeated refusal to back our calls to scrap the two child benefit cap is truly shocking. It’s clear that despite a new government, we’re just seeing more of the same, with a Labour party that are trying their best to be more Tory than the Tories”