Universal Credit and Child Tax Credit: Two-child Limit Debate
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Drew Hendry
Main Page: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)Department Debates - View all Drew Hendry's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
Universal Credit and Child Tax Credit: Two-child Limit
Drew Hendry Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the two child limit in universal credit and child tax credits.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. It is surreal still to be here debating the two-child limit in universal credit and child tax credit. When I saw the limit and the cruel and pernicious rape clause that stands part of the policy laid out in the Chancellor’s Budget in 2015, I was sure that I had made a mistake. After all, no humane Government would propose such a blunt instrument as limiting support to the first two children in a family, or making a woman prove that she has been raped just to put food on the table.
Unfortunately, I was wrong. It is three years, four months and 20 days after that Budget, and the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights has found that the UK Tory Government is exactly such an inhumane Government. Despite warnings from all manner of groups, cross-party support and U-turns on other policies over the years, the two-child policy is apparently the one that the UK Tory Government will stick to through thick and thin.
The policy stands in judgment on people’s lives and suggests that those who are less well off
“cannot have as many children as they like”—[Scottish Parliament Official Report, 24 October 2018; c. 52.]
as Tory social security spokesperson Michelle Ballantyne MSP said. The policy is damaging in the extreme, and I will outline to the Minister exactly why. I would also like to give him the opportunity to think again before the policy hits its next phase in February.
From February, all new claims will be subject to the two-child policy, regardless of when children were born. That means that, although someone might have planned their family in good times, when they could well afford to support three children, the UK Tory Government do not care—they will support only two. Life is unpredictable: it only takes somebody to get ill or die, a partner to leave, or someone to lose their job for life to turn upside-down. We note the plight of the Michelin workers in Dundee, who were not expecting to lose their jobs. None of us would be prepared for such eventualities.
Contraception can also fail. I note research from the Advisory Group on Contraception, which has produced stark figures on cuts to sexual and reproductive health services in England, so help is being lost to many on the ground. I challenge any hon. Member present to plan out exactly and specifically the financial situation for them and each of their children up to the age of 18. It is impossible.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
My hon. Friend has been a tireless champion of tackling this issue. Does she agree that cutting child tax credits is tantamount to directly targeting children with austerity?