Ministers delay flagship child poverty plan until the autumn
The child poverty strategy, originally due to be published this spring, was expected to include a recommendation to scrap the two-child benefit cap.
But the plan has now been pushed back until the autumn, the PA news agency understands, in order to align it with the next budget.
Worries about the cost of the project and its political benefit are said to be key concerns for figures at the heart of the Government, according to the Guardian newspaper which first reported the story.
The two-child benefit cap was introduced when the Conservatives were in power, and restricts parents from claiming certain benefits for more than two of their children.
Its critics say scrapping the cap would be the most effective way of reducing child poverty across the UK.
According to the Guardian, experts have warned some 100 children are pulled into poverty every day by the limit, meaning up to 20,000 could be impacted by a six-month delay.
Some within Government are concerned that delaying any action on the cap beyond the autumn will mean the impact of scrapping it would not be felt before the next general election, the newspaper said.
Labour backbenchers have been urging ministers to scrap the cap over recent months, amid a brewing rebellion against wider welfare reforms.
When asked about whether the Government is considering scrapping the cap, the Prime Minister's official spokesman has not ruled it out, but insisted there is no single 'silver bullet' to tackling child poverty.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, he said the strategy would be 'published later this year', but emphasised the Government was taking a 'comprehensive approach' to child poverty, including rolling out free breakfast clubs, increasing the number of affordable homes, and making moves to drive down household bills.
Lord John Bird, an anti-poverty campaigner and founder of the Big Issue, criticised news of the delay and said the Government had 'just kicked the issue of child poverty into the long grass'.
He added: 'The impact of their inaction will be grave. It is shameful that child poverty is forecast to not fall, but rise significantly, to 31.5% of children under this Labour government.
'We need action now, not in six months or a year's time. I will relentlessly pursue my intervention of adding child poverty targets to the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill with the vigour that the 4.3 million children living in poverty in our country deserve.'
Meanwhile, Dan Paskins, executive director of policy, advocacy and campaigns at Save the Children UK, said: 'Every month that goes by while Keir Starmer does not scrap the cruel two-child limit means thousands of children are plunged into poverty.
'We would like to see assurance from Number 10 that this delay means their child poverty strategy contains bold ideas backed with the finance – starting with scrapping the two-child limit and benefit cap.'
Elsewhere, Helen Barnard, director of policy, research and impact at the Trussell Trust, suggested delaying the strategy could benefit the people it is designed to help.
Writing on social media site X, she said 'better a delayed child poverty strategy with measures to really protect children from hunger and hardship' than 'one hitting the deadline but falling short on substance'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Herald Scotland
30 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Not a shot that's been fired across SNP's bows, it's a cruise missile
It's a totemic place for the SNP. In 1967, Winnie Ewing's by-election success in Hamilton shifted the SNP from the periphery of politics. Today, however, the town is less hallowed ground for Scottish nationalists and more field of woe. The story which should be taken from the Hamilton result isn't of Labour's win, but of SNP defeat. A shot hasn't just been fired across the SNP's bows, it's a cruise missile. This was the SNP's battle to lose and lose they did. John Swinney talked up a two-horse race between his party and Reform, dismissing the notion of a Labour win. He looks pretty foolish today. That the SNP could go down so badly to a Labour Party which has riled and alienated voters since Keir Starmer took office is remarkable. Labour won the general election with 34%. Today, that's down across Britain to about 23%. In Hamilton, however, Labour secured almost 32% – barely a change since Starmer took power. The SNP fell nearly 17%, losing a seat previously held on a majority of 4582. These are catastrophic figures for the SNP. Even Reform's rise – it came third on 26% – isn't as significant. Reform's vote in Hamilton broadly replicates its UK-wide support. So what's happened to the SNP? Well, first of all the nationalists are nowhere near as smart as they think they are. For a long time, luck was on their side. Tony Blair's administration was tarnished with war, Gordon Brown was done in by the financial crash, and years of Tory misrule played into nationalist hands. Read more: The SNP could pose as the sane opposition to London. You don't need world-class strategy and policy if your opponents are doing all the hard work for you. Claims that the SNP ran the greatest electoral machine or had the cleverest advisors were guff. However, when you've been in power nearly 20 years you can no longer pretend to be the opposition. That outsider status is working well for Reform, but the SNP are now more status quo than either Labour or Conservatives. They're an enduring symbol now of all the mistakes that the political world has wrought on citizens in recent years. The SNP has never recovered from alienating many of its progressive supporters in the wake of Nicola Sturgeon's resignation. The ensuing leadership contest revealed a level of social conservatism which shocked leftwing voters who had once backed Labour but shifted to the SNP. That – and the poison of multiple scandals – is why the SNP got hammered at the general election. Those voters haven't returned. And nor will they, for what does the SNP offer? There's been failure after failure. The word 'independence' was barely uttered during the recent campaign. If the SNP is scared to speak about independence, what's its purpose? Independence has decoupled from the SNP. The party can no longer rely on Yes voters backing nationalists. Voters long ago saw behind the Wizard of Oz curtain. The SNP managed for years to talk the talk when it came to government – with great rhetoric on climate change, child poverty, education, health and policing – but it never walked the walk. There's only so long voters will tolerate being made to feel gullible. The SNP suffers from 'the boy who cried wolf' syndrome. No matter what it says now, it's just hot air as far as many voters are concerned. The leadership took the people for granted. Evidently, the SNP has tried over the years to mitigate the worst of Westminster's excesses with policies like the Scottish Child Payment, but you can't dine out on that forever. It's like a forgotten film star showing you cuttings of their glory days. What could be more sad? Then there's the boredom factor: the SNP has been in power so long that many fancy a change, just to move the furniture around. The party ran a campaign that focused on its opponents, not on what it could offer the people. Labour ran a highly-local campaign fixed on local concerns. The SNP hierarchy is also increasingly irritating. Angus Robertson's attitude on the BBC's live coverage of the by-election was a masterclass in patrician sneering. The party comes across as entitled and full of its own self-importance. Privilege is not a good look for politicians these days. A few more humble types in prominent positions might serve nationalists better. It's also become such a bloodless party. This isn't to suggest that the SNP embrace outright populism, but if Starmer's managerialism is off-putting, Swinney is close to funereal at times. If the SNP thinks it can hold on to Holyrood at next year's Scottish election by simply giving us more of the same, then Hamilton should be taken as necessary corrective medicine. Quite simply, the people want politicians to make their lives better and the SNP are not doing that. Indeed, the people seem to be saying that even the clunking, u-turning, impossible to like policies of Starmer are more in accord with them than the SNP. That is bad.
Reuters
44 minutes ago
- Reuters
Shaken by crises, Switzerland fetters UBS's global dream
BERN, June 6 (Reuters) - Switzerland announced reforms on Friday to make its biggest bank UBS (UBSG.S), opens new tab safer and avoid another crisis, hampering the global ambitions of a lender whose financial weight eclipses the country's economy. UBS emerged as Switzerland's sole global bank more than two years ago after the government hastily arranged its rescue of scandal-hit Credit Suisse to prevent a disorderly collapse. The demise of Credit Suisse, one of the world's biggest banks, rattled global markets and blindsided officials and regulators, whose struggle to steer the lender as it lurched from one scandal to the next underscored their weakness. On Friday, speaking from the same podium where she had announced the Credit Suisse rescue in 2023 as finance minister, Switzerland's president Karin Keller-Sutter delivered a firm message. The country would not be wrongfooted again. "I don't believe that the competitiveness will be impaired, but it is true that growth abroad will become more expensive," Keller-Sutter said of UBS. "We've had two crises. 2008 and 2023," she said. "If you see something that is broken, you have to fix it." During the global financial crisis of 2008, UBS was hit by a losses in subprime debt, as a disastrous expansion into riskier investment banking forced it to write down tens of billions of dollars and ultimately turn to the state for help. Memories of that crisis also linger, reinforcing the government's resolve after the collapse of Credit Suisse. For UBS, which has a financial balance sheet of around $1.7 trillion, far bigger than the Swiss economy, the implications of the reforms proposed on Friday are clear. Switzerland no longer wants to back its international growth. "Bottom line: who is carrying the risk for growth abroad?" said Keller-Sutter. "The bank, its owners or the state?" The rules the government proposed demand that UBS in Switzerland holds more capital to cover risks in its foreign operations. That move, one of the most important steps taken by the Swiss in a series of otherwise piecemeal measures, will make UBS's businesses abroad more expensive to run for one of the globe's largest banks for millionaires and billionaires. Following publication of the reform plans, UBS Chairman Colm Kelleher and CEO Sergio Ermotti said in an internal memo that if fully implemented, they would undermine the bank's "global competitive footprint" and hurt the Swiss economy. The reform would require UBS to hold as much as $26 billion in extra capital. Some believe the demands may alter the bank's course. "It could be that UBS has to change its strategy of growth in the United States and Asia," said Andreas Venditti, an analyst at Vontobel. "It's not just growing. It makes the existing business more expensive. It is an incentive to get smaller and this will most likely happen." Credit Suisse's demise exploded the myth of invincibility of one of the wealthiest countries in the world, home to a global reserve currency, and proved as unworkable a central reform of the financial crisis to prevent state bailouts. For many in Switzerland, the government's reforms are long overdue. "The bank is bigger than the entire Swiss economy. It makes sense that it should not grow even bigger," said Andreas Missbach of Alliance Sud, a group that campaigns for transparency. "It is good that the government did not give in to lobbying by UBS. The question is whether it is enough. We have a banking crisis roughly every 12 years. So I'm not really put at ease." UBS CEO Ermotti had lobbied against the reforms, arguing that a heavy capital burden would put the bank on the back foot with rivals. The world's second-largest wealth manager after Morgan Stanley is dwarfed by its U.S. peer. Morgan Stanley shares value the firm at twice its book value, compared with UBS's 20% premium to book. On Friday, the bank reiterated this message, saying that it strongly disagreed with the "extreme" increase in capital. But others are sceptical that the government has done enough. Hans Gersbach, a professor at ETH Zurich, said there was still no proper plan to cope should UBS run into trouble. "The credibility of the too big to fail regime remains in question."
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Reform UK councils in ‘shambles' as newly elected councillors fail to show up
Reform UK gained control of nine councils and minority control in three more in May's local elections, but opposition councillors claim the party's organisation and productivity have been a "shambles" since. Across the 12 Reform -controlled councils, 33 meetings have been cancelled or postponed in the first nine weeks since the election, and at least 21 Reform councillors have missed their first meetings. In Kent, nine out of 22 scheduled meetings have been cancelled since the election, including legally required meetings like the governance and audit committee. An opposition councillor in Kent, Rich Lehmann, said the cancellations were "shocking" and questioned Reform 's ability to lead the council, while Sam Smith, leader of the Conservatives in Nottinghamshire, called the start "shambolic." Reform UK councillors have reportedly cancelled meetings to reschedule them when more prepared, while Nottinghamshire Council's new Reform leader Mick Barton dismissed the criticisms as "political rhetoric from the opposition."
