Debate contribution: Universal Credit: Remove the Two-child Limit

Debate contribution by Ms Sian Mulholland on 16 April 2024.

MLA

Ms Sian Mulholland

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

16 April 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Universal Credit: Remove the Two-child Limit

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4483306

Read the official Assembly record

Text

This debate has much synergy with the debate yesterday about child poverty, and I thank the Opposition for bringing it forward. The recent findings of the Northern Ireland Audit Office report on child poverty and the Northern Ireland poverty and income inequality report have shone a light on a sobering reality. The rising number of children and families in Northern Ireland living in poverty is simply unacceptable, and we have agreed that. The Audit Office report reveals that nearly half of children living in relative poverty come from families with three or more children. Those in larger families were already more vulnerable to deprivation even before this policy. We do not limit access to healthcare, education or public services by order of birth, so there is no justification for limiting access to social security, with £3,455 lost for each child born subsequent to the second, as recent figures have shown. The two-child benefit cap is a policy born out of callous disregard for the well-being of the most vulnerable people in society. It is penalising families for the number of children they have, punishing innocent children for circumstances far beyond their control and forcing women to disclose pregnancy as a result of rape. According to the Northern Ireland Anti-Poverty Network, this represents 45,000 children in Northern Ireland. That is 45,000 children whom the Tory Government deem irrelevant when it comes to meeting their essential needs of food on the plate and a roof over their heads. Let us be clear: it is a policy that flies in the face of compassion, empathy and basic human decency, although those are not words that I would associate with the current Tory Government anyway, to be honest. It is also clear that the policy exacerbates gender disparities, with women disproportionately affected due to their higher share of childcare responsibilities. Additionally, we cannot overlook the fact that, until recently, reproductive choice in Northern Ireland was greatly impacted, leaving women in extremely difficult circumstances when faced with an unplanned third or subsequent pregnancy. Comprehensive research by the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) has shown that there is no evidence that it has increased employment, which was the initial justification. It found that those who had larger families tended to have to care for their own children, citing barriers to childcare and logistics as some of the reasons why they are not economically active. Incidentally, this also links to the necessity for a fully resourced childcare strategy for Northern Ireland. From an international perspective, none of the other developed countries that are members of the OECD limit the number of children eligible for means-tested family benefits; in fact, they increase with family size. We can be absolutely clear that this is not the type of policy that a developed country with the well-being of its citizens at heart should have in place. While we support the motion and I do not think, in good faith, that any of us would argue that penalising children for the size of their family is good policy and my colleagues Naomi Long and Stephen Farry have vociferously campaigned and voted against the policy at Westminster, we would like it to be noted that we are concerned about the cost implications of a blanket call for a removal of the two-child limit before that happens at Westminster and any legislation can be changed at that level. It would break parity with what is in place and therefore siphon already much-stretched finances into creating an IT system to deliver an alternative rather than into the pockets of families, where it is needed most. I heard some costings, but I did not hear from the Opposition what the implications of breaking parity — making that change — would be.

Yes.

It does not include —.

While I agree that you made some reference to costings, the point was more about the infrastructure around removal before there is a change in legislation.

Thank you, Minister. I appreciate the clarity on that. We recognise the need for something urgent to happen. We know that we need to put money into the pockets of families as quickly as we can. As I said to the Member for North Belfast, this is a crisis. I ask the Minister to assess urgently the practical and fiscal implications of all options for IT and infrastructure and the cost of the mitigation. In the same spirit, we welcome, in a lukewarm way, the amendment. We do not believe that this can wait for reporting on mitigation schemes. We absolutely want to see the adoption, not just the noting, of the independent advisory panel's recommendations in the welfare mitigations review, including, as was mentioned, the offsetting of the two-child limit by introducing the better start larger families payment. That welfare supplementary payment would mitigate in full the penalising of third and subsequent children and put money back in the pocket of those who need it. Ideally, we would like to see that put in place alongside further recommendations from the mitigations review, such as the better start grant that would support families at pinch points in a child's life, and, as per Alliance policy, we would like to see an additional child payment to vulnerable households to allow for the best start to a child's life. I will repeat what I said yesterday: regardless of the approach that we take, the question should be not how much this will cost to do but how much it will cost not to do.

922 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not qualifying

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:55 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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