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Click on the right to download the latest issue of SPARK, our newsletter for supporters of Church Action on Poverty.

SPARK autumn 2024

Church on the Margins reports

Church Action on Poverty North East annual report 2022-24

In this guest blog, Church Action on Poverty supporter Sam Corcoran lays out some of the reasons we're calling on the Government to put an end to the unjust sibling penalty.

Child benefit was a universal benefit that was not means-tested, but that changed in 2013 with the introduction of the High Income Child Benefit Charge (HICBC) which effectively reclaims child benefit if any household member is earning over £60,000 pa (£50,000 prior to 2024). 

In 2017 a policy was introduced restricting Universal Credit and child tax credit for 3rd and subsequent children born after that year. The stated aim of the two-child limit was to make “families on benefits face the same financial choices about having children as families who are supporting themselves solely through work”. Without commenting on the moral case for using the benefits system to deter people from having children, the policy has failed to achieve its objective, with studies showing only a small fall in births in affected families.

What the policy has achieved is a massive rise in child poverty. 25% of children are now living in poverty. A report from the Resolution Foundation in January 2024 suggested that half of families with three children or more will be in poverty by 2028-29, up from a third in 2013-14 – whereas the number of two-child families in poverty is expected to stay the same, at one in four. This supports the argument that the two–child benefit limit has increased child poverty. It is estimated that 420,000 families were affected by the two-child limit in 2023, so the number of families affected is significant. 

The impact of the limit is going to get worse.

As the policy applies to children born after 6 April 2017, the impact on child poverty is continuing to increase, and when the policy is fully rolled out it is expected to affect 750,000 families.

So why isn’t the new Government repealing the two-child limit?

Seven Labour MPs were suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party for supporting an amendment in the King’s Speech. At first sight this suggests that the Labour party is opposed to a change to the limit. However, comments from a number of other Labour MPs suggest a strong desire to reduce child poverty, and that the suspensions were about party unity around the King’s Speech. The way forward may be to persuade the Labour party to change its policy from within. The main objection to a change of policy seems to be the cost, estimated at £1.7bn, and where this would be funded from.

To put the costs in perspective, in the spring 2024 budget the High Income Benefit Charge Threshold was increased from £50,000 to £60,000, at a cost of £635 million in 2025-26. 

In a wider context, investing in children carries long=term benefits, with improved educational outcomes and longer healthy life expectancy. Sir Michael Marmot advocates “Give every child the best start in life” as the first of six key recommendations in his report Fair Society; Healthy Lives to address health inequalities.

As a local councillor I have seen the impact that early intervention and prevention (or the lack of it) can have on the costs of expensive high-needs intervention. So perhaps the £1.7bn cost of abolishing the two-child limit should be compared with the £7.3bn a year spent on Research & Development tax credits, of which over £1bn goes on R&D carried out overseas, and 80% of the cost goes on research that would have happened anyway.

The case for abolishing the two-child limit seems strong. It has not achieved its stated aims. It has contributed to an increase in child poverty. 

Some further reading

The politics

Connor Naismith MP posted on X/Twitter:

“I passionately care about lifting the 7,000 children in my constituency out of poverty. Motions to amend a King’s Speech will not do that. A serious, considered plan from a Labour government will. I will work constructively with colleagues to ensure we deliver that plan.”


Sam Corcoran is a Labour councillor, former leader of Cheshire East Council, and a member of the Roman Catholic National Justice and Peace Network.

SPARK autumn 2024

Time to scrap the two-child limit

From churches to the Government: end this great sibling injustice

Church Action on Poverty in Sheffield: 15th annual Pilgrimage

Unheard no more: Story project brings hope for change

Wanted: honorary Treasurer for our Council of Management

Churches around the UK are joining calls for an end to the UK's highly controversial two-child limit. Ask your church to sign the letter today.

Child playing with building blocks
Image by Esi Grünhagen from Pixabay

The two-child limit means families are not allowed to access support through Universal Credit or Child Tax Credit, for more than two children, if children were born after April 2017.

The limit was introduced in 2017, and was unprecedented in the UK social security system, in creating differing support levels, based on sibling numbers. It has long been opposed by church leaders and charities on moral reasons, and is described by Save The Children as a sibling tax. 

Today, 1.6 million children in 440,000 households are affected, and families are being denied access to £3,455 a year.

Churches have always been among the most vocal critics of the policy. The effort is being stepped up now because the new Government has launched a Child Poverty Strategy, and there are hopes that Ministers might heed the growing calls. We hope the policy will be removed in the Budget in October.

The full text of the letter is below. 

Text of the letter from churches to the Chancellor of the Exchequer

Dear Chancellor,

We write to you from across the UK, on behalf of our churches of many denominations, to join the calls for you to use your upcoming Budget to end the two-child limit in social security systems.

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, 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. 

The policy has proven futile, failing to achieve even its stated aims from 2017. That was clear in a Work and Pensions Committee report as early as 2019. But above all, the policy is quite simply unjust and unjustifiable. 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. 

Yours sincerely…

SPARK autumn 2024

Time to scrap the two-child limit

From churches to the Government: end this great sibling injustice

Church Action on Poverty in Sheffield: 15th annual Pilgrimage

Unheard no more: Story project brings hope for change

Wanted: honorary Treasurer for our Council of Management

SPARK autumn 2024

Time to scrap the two-child limit

From churches to the Government: end this great sibling injustice