Siobhán continues to attend meetings of the Cliff Edge Coalition Working Group which is working to strengthen the existing mitigations package for Northern Ireland.
The removal of the two-child limit is a key ask of the Cliff Edge Campaign. Following the change of Government at Westminster there has been increased focus on the damaging impacts of the two-child limit in relation to child poverty. While it is positive to see increased focus on this policy and the need to remove it there have been some issues around the terminology used to reference this policy in the media and among some politicians including NI politicians.
This led to Cliff Edge writing to all the local MLAs and all the Northern Ireland MPs to clarify the terminology and to warn about the implications of getting it wrong. It clearly set out the following:
- Cliff Edge Coalition’s concerns about the increasing use of the incorrect term ‘two-child benefit cap’ to refer to the two-child limit for Universal Credit (and Tax Credits). The concern is that the misleading term risks conflating two different policies – the two-child limit and the benefit cap – in the minds of the public, with potentially wider implications.
- For example, in some cases, this may lead claimants to incorrectly believe that they are not entitled to claim Child Benefit for more than two children, potentially causing harm and financial hardship to claimants.
- The two-child limit limits the child element in Universal Credit (and Tax Credits) to two children (with some limited exceptions).
- The benefit cap is a separate policy which limits the total amount of benefits a claimant/family can receive. The benefit cap is currently mitigated until the end of March 2025 in Northern Ireland.
- Child Benefit is an allowance paid to claimants for each child no matter how many children they have.
Following the concerns raised by Cliff Edge members and others about the use of the incorrect terminology, Martin Lewis (Money Saving Expert) produced a short video explaining the differences between all these policies which you can watch here:
