Help end the unjust two-child limit

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.

We urge all church leaders to add your names to our call for an end to this harmful and unjust policy. Read the letter on the right, then fill in your details below.

Read our background briefing here

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...