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

Debate contribution by Mr Mark Durkan on 16 April 2024.

MLA

Mr Mark Durkan

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

16 April 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Universal Credit: Remove the Two-child Limit

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4483456

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Go raibh maith agat, a Phríomh-Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

Our unique position, growing housing crisis, low-wage economy, prevalence of larger families and high levels of people living with a disability mean that the impact of welfare reform has been more pronounced here. The need for mitigations was recognition that this policy was, and is, wrong. Social justice is a core founding principle of the SDLP, and I argue that the two-child cap, the biggest driver of poverty in the UK, is one of the biggest social justice challenges of our time. To stand idly by would contradict the essence of not just my party but that of the Assembly and Executive. This policy contradicts the principles of equality and fairness and cannot merely be mitigated — it must be abolished. Since the introduction of welfare reform, compounded by the lack of a functioning Executive, we have seen an increase in child poverty rates, rising homelessness and a huge rise in the use of food banks. As of last April, 422,000 children were impacted by this cruel cap, a number that will rise massively given the recent migration of tax credit claims to universal credit. We are yet to feel the full punch of a policy that disproportionately impacts on single-parent households, chiefly single mothers. The UC migration will ensure that families with three or more children will be financially disadvantaged by £3,400 per year per child for their third child and every additional child, entrenching poverty as a daily reality for hundreds of thousands of children. Impact will differ from home to home: some will get it bad, and some will get it worse. The impact is also being felt sharply by and across our local economy. Many in the Chamber were led to believe that the two-child cap, the benefit cap and the five-week wait under UC would be resolved under secondary welfare legislation. In 2021, Minister Deirdre Hargey assured me that they remained a priority consideration and would be progressed as a matter of urgency. The Sinn Féin/DUP-led Executive, however, failed people as they engaged in sham fights over mitigations. Now, Minister Lyons states that he has no plans to mitigate the two-child policy.

Sorry, I do not really have time. I will come to you if I have time later on. It is important to understand the events that got us here. The two-child limit was floated by then Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, among additional austerity-based welfare reform measures, as part of his post-election emergency Budget in July 2015. Osborne was, even then, deemed one of the most disastrous post-war Chancellors Britain had ever seen — too posh and too out of touch even for the Tories. His reforms were intended to encourage people into work and to cut the welfare bill. It is all very reminiscent of Victorian Poor Law, and I do not make the comparison flippantly. Those laws compelled the idle to work and perpetuated harmful, divisive stereotypes about the poor — the benefit scroungers — rather than setting sights on the big fish that continue to evade tax by the billion. Some of this narrative was sadly parroted by the DUP at times and in places. I have to say that I am glad that they seem to have wised up, at least in that regard. Essentially, the Dickensian policies, founded by the Tory Government and rubber-stamped by the DUP, Sinn Féin and Alliance, have created a system whereby households in full-time work do not earn enough to support themselves. I should point out for context that that was the Tory agenda that was in play at the very time when the Assembly voted to vest power in Westminster to inflict welfare reform on the North. The vote in 2015 by the DUP, Sinn Féin and Alliance was not just to acquiesce to the Welfare Reform Act 2012 but to fully endorse the entire suite of reforms — sorry, cuts — that were being driven by a Tory Government. They gave the big, bad Tory wolves the keys to the henhouse. The SDLP was the only party, both at Westminster and in the Assembly, that consistently voted against those reforms. Even Iain Duncan Smith resigned in 2016, claiming that universal credit was not achieving its intended aim of supporting working families and was not safeguarding people with disabilities. I make no bones about it: the two-child cap is discriminatory by design. It disproportionately impacts on families from specific cultural and religious backgrounds, including Catholics and migrants. According to the Child Poverty Action Group, there are twice as many large poorer families here as there are in Scotland and the south-west of the UK. Colm Gildernew made those exact points and stated that his party continues to call for the UK to scrap the policy. Sinn Féin would have been better voting against it than standing with placards on the lawns of Westminster. Despite those circumstances, Mr Lyons recently confirmed that no equality assessment has been carried out on the impact of the two-child cap on the North or on women specifically. It is unforgivable that such a profound policy change was accepted while Departments were blindfolded to the reality of its consequences in this region. As if the nature of the two-child policy was not odious enough, the rape clause, which was raised by, among others, Ms Mulholland and Mr McGrath, is an egregious example of insensitivity and injustice in policymaking. It forces women to disclose deeply traumatic experiences of sexual assault in order to access welfare support for a third child who has been conceived as a result of rape. That re-traumatises and dehumanises survivors. It also poses a greater ethical dilemma for social workers in the North than that faced by their GB counterparts, because, under section 5 of the Criminal Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1967, a social worker could face prosecution for not reporting a rape disclosed to them during a universal credit application. The policy therefore fails to safeguard not only women but the social work sector. It is a policy that drives poverty and places the UK in violation of international law under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. If such reforms broke Britain, I fear that they will eviscerate the North. How can we, in good conscience, accept that as an example of effective policy? We have been elected to make this place work. That means making tough decisions, but not at the expense or to the detriment of the people whom we represent. We are under no illusion that funding the removal of the two-child policy will be easy. We estimate that it will cost in the region of £135 million in the first three years. That could be, as my colleagues have said, funded by using the rates increase and further reform of the rates system. In reference to a point that the Minister made, the more you increase rates — we are not looking to increase rates across the board — the more empty premises we will see. We are open to exploring options alongside Departments and Executive parties. We tabled this motion to get the Executive to act, not to embarrass them for not acting, although it would be impossible to embarrass some of the parties here. I am disappointed but not surprised that the parties that enabled that punitive policy have circled the wagons. Alliance is voting for an amendment that Ms Armstrong described as being "wishy-washy" rather than taking a principled stand or even giving us a plan for how to put money back into people's purses now — wishy-washy indeed.

To not support our motion because of cost, when there have been no such concerns as Executive parties have passed motion after apple-pie motion that would see spending like we have not seen since 'Brewster's Millions', suggests that some have misunderstood the meaning of Opposition day. Sinn Féin Members seem to have gone into hiding, although I am glad that they seem to be in breach of their two-MLA limit. Child poverty costs society an estimated £1 billion per year, but abolishing the two-child limit has been lauded as the most cost-effective way of reducing those costs and would immediately lift a quarter of a million children out of poverty. Inaction on the matter will cost us dearly. On balance, we cannot accept that scrapping this callous rule would place serious and recurring constraints on public spending. We will not, as you will not be surprised to hear, support the amendment, which calls on the Minister to have a wee think about the merits of maybe doing something this time next year. I thank and put on record our party's thanks to all those who work so hard in the sector. Their commitment has been unwavering, and their work has at times been harrowing. We thank them.

1,480 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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