New Labour Government fails to remove the ‘two child limit’.
They even suspended seven of their own MPs who voted for it’s removal. Our two Southend Labour MPs voted to keep it too. We Lib Dems all voted to remove the limit. But what is this cap and why is it bad?
A family in Southend entitled to claim universal credit of 22k a year with three children would be about £280 a month better off with the cap removed.
These aren’t scroungers either, more than half have one adult working. Half are single parents struggling to survive. Now you see why so many have to use food banks.
Before you ask, it would cost over £3.4 billion a year and could be paid for by higher taxes on very, very rich individuals and on Corporations who pay little to no tax. Starbucks made £150 million last year and paid about 4 million in tax. If you or I earned that, the government would take about half of it, about £70 million. Instead, Starbucks profits go to the very wealthy shareholders outside the UK. Also, it would only increase the welfare budget by 3%.
It is the UK’s children who suffer and it is hard to measure the impact of that on them individually and on us as a society, but it doesn’t need to happen it was a political choice by our new government. One that baffles me.