North Herts Council pass motion to challenge two child benefit cap

Cllr Daniel Allen made the comments while debating a motion at yesterday’s (Thursday,  September 19) council meeting instructing him to write to Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves “indicating North Herts Council’s strong belief that the two-child limit to benefit payments should be scrapped”.

Proposed by Cllr Chris Lucas (LD, Hitchin Priory), the motion also instructed Cllr Allen to ask North Hertfordshire’s three MPs – Alistair Strathern, Chris Hinchliff and Kevin Bonavia – to “commit their public support to the campaign to end the cruel two-child limit to benefit payments”.

Speaking about the two-child cap, Cllr Allen said: “I hate it. I absolutely hate it. I will be voting in favour of this motion.”

Many Labour councillors voted in favour of the motion, which passed by 36 votes to six after a debate lasting thirty minutes.

Currently, parents can only claim universal credit or child tax credit for two children, with a few exemptions.

The cap was announced in 2015 and came into effect under the Conservative government in April 2017.

In July, seven Labour MPs had the whip suspended after they voted in favour of an SNP amendment calling for the two-child cap to be scrapped. North Hertfordshire’s three MPs all voted against the amendment.

Anti-poverty campaigners say the cap contributes to child poverty across the UK.

Cllr Lucas said the two-child cap is “inhumane” and “says to the 2,120 children in 590 households in North Herts that are affected … that even if you face hard times and you find yourselves in difficult circumstances, the state will only support your first two children”.

Cllr Chris Lucas (Image: Chris Lucas)

“Poverty doesn’t come from having children, poverty comes from inequality, from a broken economy, and from government policies that punish the vulnerable rather than uplift them.

“Families are left making impossible choices, cutting back on essentials like food, heating and clothing because a government refuses to offer support to more than two children.”

He said “sexism” was “ingrained” in the policy: “It’s a policy that assumes women can control and should control their reproductive choices entirely based on economic circumstances.

“It ignores the reality of domestic abuse, contraceptive failure or the difficult decisions that families face.”

Cllr Matt Barnes (LD, Royston Meridian) also said the policy has “a disproportionate impact on women”.

Councillors rejected an amendment from (Lab, Hitchin Oughton) Cllr Nigel Mason that sought to remove a sentence stating: “Council notes with concern the stance of the Labour government, who are committed to keeping the cap, going as far as suspending the whip from MPs who rebel against this position.”

Cllr Mason said it was “stretching the truth to breaking point” to say that the government is “committed to keeping the cap”. He said the government had “made it clear it would want to get rid of the two-child cap and it’s lack of budget that has stopped us from doing it so far”.

Keir Starmer has said he agrees with education secretary Bridget Phillipson, who told Sky News the government would “consider [lifting the cap] as one of a number of levers in terms of how we make sure we lift children out of poverty”.

But Cllr Sam Collins (LD, Hitchin Highbury) suggested the amendment showed “Labour trying to extricate themselves from the fact that Labour did vote against getting rid of the two-child benefit cap”.

A second amendment, welcoming the government’s new child poverty taskforce, was approved by councillors, despite Cllr Lucas insisting it was a way to “kick the can down the road”.

Both Cllr Alistair Willoughby (Lab, Baldock West) and Cllr Ian Albert (Lab, Hitchin Bearton) said the task force was an “additional” measure, rather than a replacement for removing the child benefit cap.

Cllr Albert said: “We will not solve child poverty solely by removing the two-child limit; there are many other issues to resolve”.

Cllr Tim Johnson (LD, Royston Meridian) said removing the cap was not a “panacea” but would be “a flipping good start point”.

Responding to this story, Kevin Bonavia told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “I don’t want to see a single child growing up in poverty in my constituency, but until we fix the economic ruin left by 14 years of fiscally disastrous Conservative governments – we can’t simply open an unfunded spending tap on all the policies we would like to enact in an ideal world.”

He said the new child poverty taskforce will make tackling the issue “a central focus of the government’s work”.

Mr Bonavia added he would “not be pre-empting the findings of that taskforce or what will be in the October budget” but would “feed” views from constituents “into the taskforce and to the chancellor”.

Chris Hinchliff and Alistair Strathern were contacted for comment on this story.