Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock has called on the government to scrap the two-child cap on benefits, warning that rising poverty levels in the UK 'would make Charles Dickens furious'. In an interview with the Sunday Mirror, Lord Kinnock also urged ministers to introduce a wealth tax to help reverse the trend.
The two-child limit on benefits, introduced by the Conservatives in 2017, restricts support to the first two children in most families. Lord Kinnock acknowledged that scrapping the cap 'all at once' may not be possible, but said he wanted the government to move in that direction, noting that it could lift around 600,000 children out of poverty.
Lord Kinnock suggested that a wealth tax on the 'top 1%' could fund the change, describing it as 'the economics of Robin Hood' but adding that he saw 'nothing terribly bad about that'. He warned that child poverty had risen gradually over the 15 years of Conservative rule, leaving children 'voiceless' and their parents 'powerless'.
The peer is the latest senior Labour figure to pressure the government on the issue, following former prime minister Gordon Brown, who recently said ending the two-child limit and the benefit cap would be among the most effective ways to reduce child poverty. Government data last month showed that nearly 1.7 million children now live in households affected by the policy, with a further 37,000 affected in the year to April.
A government spokesperson responded by saying that the child poverty taskforce would publish an ambitious strategy later this year, focusing on reforming the social security system to help people into work, which they described as 'the best way to improve living standards for families'.
