More than 170 Church Leaders From Across the UK Have Urged the Chancellor to Scrap the Unjust Two-child Limit in Social Security Systems.

Senior church figures from multiple denominations joined the growing national calls, ahead of the new Government’s first Budget, on October 30th.

They signed an open letter, coordinated by Church Action on Poverty as part of Challenge Poverty Week.

The letter says:

It should be a universal national aspiration that all children in the UK have the best chances our country can provide. This should be a country that creates opportunities, which believes in and pursues progress, and which does all it can to enable children to flourish and pursue their dreams.

Towards that end, the UK’s shared social security system should be just and effective. Yet, right now, the two-child limit is instead creating a great injustice. It is, in reality, a sibling penalty. It punishes children for the fact that they happen to have more than one brother or sister. Something that should be a joy – sibling companionship – is instead held against children, denying them access to the opportunities, security and basic sustenance that all children deserve and need.

The Government’s own statistics show that 1.6 million children in 440,000 households are affected by the sibling restriction, with families missing out on up to £3,455 a year. There is widespread consensus that ending this policy would be the single most effective step the Government could take towards ending poverty, immediately freeing 300,000 children from poverty.

A Work and Pensions Committee report as early as 2019 showed that the policy was not achieving its stated aims, but the letter signatories said that above all, the policy was “unjust and unjustifiable”.

The letter says:

No child should be actively held back by the Government, and left worse off than their peers, simply because of how many brothers and sisters they have. We urge you, in this month’s Budget, to end this policy, and in doing so to start laying the road to a future that all families can look forward to with hope.

There were 175 signatories to Church Action on Poverty’s letter, including representatives from the Church of England, Church of Scotland, Church in Wales, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, Quaker and Pentecostal and Episcopal churches. Signatories include the President and Vice-President of the Methodist Conference, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the URC, and the Catholic Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle.

Niall Cooper, chief executive of Church Action on Poverty, said:

Churches have rightly spoken out against this unjust policy for many years, and it is encouraging that church leaders from a wide range of denominations are doing so again. The UK should be a country that strives to create opportunity, and which enables children to achieve their potential. The two-child limit does the exact opposite, and should be scrapped immediately. The Chancellor should listen to the growing consensus, the strong evidence, and the overwhelming moral imperative on this issue.

The policy was unprecedented in British social security systems when it was introduced in 2017, and churches have long highlighted the moral injustice it creates. Dozens of Bishops and other faith leaders wrote to the Government on its first anniversary, calling for it to be scrapped, and earlier this year the Archbishop of York joined calls for its removal, saying it was the biggest driver of rising child poverty.

The Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales last month also renewed its call for it to be ended, saying it undermines the financial security of many families, who are often forced onto Universal Credit by the loss of work or the onset of disability.