Anti-poverty campaigners put UK govt under pressure on child welfare

Support payments for children normally give families "extra flexibility to have a little bit of income to pay for more food and more activities for their children", she told AFP.

However, since 2017, the UK has imposed a two-child cap on benefits, which prevents families from getting welfare payments beyond the first two children.

One mother who regularly comes to the hub, which is dedicated to ethnic minorities and run by the charity Coffee Afrik CIC, has had to take up extra work as a carer to support her five children.

The two-child cap on state benefits affects her "immensely" alongside recent hikes in food prices and rent, said Hassan.

Even with the extra work, she has had to cut the hours of tutoring her older children receive to prepare for their end-of-school exams at 16, she added.

The mother, who declined to give her name, lives in Hackney, the London borough with the third-highest proportion of children in poverty. London itself has the highest child poverty rate in England.

- 'Political choice' -

The controversial policy left over from the previous Conservative administration is providing an early test of Keir Starmer's authority as the UK's new prime minister.

On Tuesday night he suspended seven of his own Labour MPs who defied the government and voted for the limit to be scrapped because of its effect on low-income families.

Political commentators said his swift action sent a strong message to would-be rebels but with rates of poverty having soared under the Tories, particularly foodbank use, he will have to tackle the issue.

A UNICEF report last year found that the UK -- a G7 and NATO member, and the world's sixth biggest economy -- has one of the highest rates of child poverty among richer countries.

Around 4.3 million children -- or 30 percent of all kids in the UK -- were living in poverty from 2022-2023, according to government data.

Starmer has indicated that he would consider removing the limit, but said the approximately £3 billion ($3.9 billion) price tag was unaffordable.

Finance minister Rachel Reeves, who has made stabilising the economy a priority, told the BBC on Sunday that the government was "not willing to make unfunded commitments".

Instead, it has promised other measures such as introducing free breakfast clubs in primary schools and forming a child poverty taskforce to make recommendations.

But Ruth Patrick, a lead researcher on a major independent research project looking into the impacts of the two-child limit, said the government "can't even begin to fix the issue of child poverty without an end to the two-child limit."

"That just absolutely has to happen. And it has to happen now," she told AFP.

Patrick also said the limit is "internationally unique", with her research finding no other country in the OECD group of economically developed nations capping welfare support at two children.

"It's a political choice, and it's a political choice that can be overturned," she said, adding that the cap makes "lives that were already a struggle, harder".

'Moral duty'

The charity Child Poverty Action Group said this month that some 1.6 million children are currently affected by the cap, with 93 percent of families saying it hurt their ability to buy food.

The Resolution Foundation think tank, which works on improving living standards for people on low to middle incomes, said the limit is set to push the "majority" of families with three or more children below the poverty line in the next five years.

It argued that removing the cap would be the most cost-effective way to tackle record-high child poverty rates, with research showing between 300,000 and half a million children would be lifted out of poverty.

John McDonnell, who served as left-wing former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's finance spokesman, was one of the seven MPs sanctioned on Tuesday.

Before the vote, McDonnell told AFP the two-child cap was a "brutal attack on families".

"Labour in government has a moral duty to end this child suffering. It is completely affordable and will save money by preventing ill health amongst poorer children," he added.