Andy Burnham has urged Keir Starmer to eliminate the two-child benefit limit, stating that there is no ethical justification for maintaining the policy. This plea comes as the government contemplates removing or softening the Tory-era policy, which has been accused of ensnaring hundreds of thousands of children in poverty.
The Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, and the Liverpool City Region Mayor, Steve Rotheram, have advocated for adopting Gordon Brown’s suggestion to increase gambling taxes in the Budget to generate funds to address high levels of child poverty.
Speaking at an event with The Mirror’s Real Britain columnist Ros-Wynne Jones, Burnham emphasized the importance of lifting the two-child cap on benefits to alleviate poverty in various regions. He proposed implementing a gambling tax or wealth tax to address this issue effectively.
Burnham highlighted that abolishing the two-child benefit limit would not only reduce poverty but also boost morale within the party. He criticized the Labour Party’s decision to withdraw the whip from seven MPs who opposed the policy last summer, noting that such actions were not commonplace during the Brown and Blair era.
Recent analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) revealed that scrapping the policy, which restricts Child Tax Credits and Universal Credit to the first two children in a family, could lift 630,000 children out of poverty in the long run. The government is anticipated to release the results of its child poverty review, which includes an assessment of the two-child benefit limit, later this year.
In addition, Liverpool City Region Mayor Rotheram expressed admiration for London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s initiative of providing free school meals, emphasizing the financial challenges faced in implementing a similar policy due to budget constraints.
Burnham urged the Labour Party to prioritize addressing the cost-of-living crisis and reducing people’s expenses. He suggested interventions to lower various bills, such as transportation fares and council tax, to alleviate the financial burden on individuals grappling with high living costs.