More than 2,000 families with eight or more kids now receive £21,800 a year extra after Labour scrapped two-child benefit cap
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By GREG HEFFER, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
Published: | Updated:
More than 2,000 families with eight or more kids now receive £21,800 extra a year after Labour scrapped the two-child benefit cap, it has been revealed.
Official data shows there were 2,200 households on Universal Credit with a child element for eight or more children shortly after the Government axed the cap.
It means those households are on course to get £21,884 extra each year now the limit has been lifted.
Between 2017 and April this year, the two-child benefit cap meant parents could only claim Universal Credit or child tax credit for their first two children.
The cap was scrapped by ex-prime minister Keir Starmer before he left Downing Street as he desperately scrambled to win over Labour MPs and save his doomed premiership.
Following his resignation to make way for Andy Burnham, Sir Keir described the decision to lift the cap as the proudest achievement of his time in power.
But critics despaired at the Government for adding an estimated £3billion a year to Britain's benefits bill and putting further pressure on the nation's finances.
Official data shows there were 2,200 households on Universal Credit with a child element for eight or more children shortly after the Government axed the cap
Figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), obtained via a Freedom of Information request, also showed there were 17,290 households on Universal Credit with a child element for six or more children in May this year.
These households are set to receive £14,589 extra a year following the axing of the cap, with families getting £303.94 extra per child per month.
In an article for The Sun on Sunday, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch reiterated her party's pledge to reinstate the two-child benefit cap to fund an increase in defence spending.
'We believe those on benefits should have to make the same choices about having children as those who aren't,' she wrote.
Helen Whately, the Conservatives' shadow work and pensions secretary, said: 'Hardworking parents don't get a pay rise from their employer when they have another child, but Labour has done just that for people on benefits.
'Large families are getting crazy amounts of extra money in benefits and the taxpayer is footing the bill.
'For many hardworking families struggling to make ends meet, it's a kick in the teeth.
'Conservatives believe in fairness, and that means those on welfare have to make difficult choices just like those who are not.
'Labour should never have lifted the two-child cap, and we will bring it back.'
A DWP spokesperson said: 'Almost 60 per cent of households benefitting from the removal of two-child limit have at least one parent in work.
'This important change gives hard-working families some extra breathing room in their daily lives, while lifting 450,000 children out of poverty in the final year of this Parliament.
'Children growing up in poverty are far more likely to leave school without qualifications and end up not in work or education as young adults.'
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