Cuts to support for those with children


The additional amount for children which forms part of UC (the child element) is paid on top of any Child Benefit.


The government brought in rules to limit support for families on benefits and those receiving tax credits to the first two children from April 2017. From this date, the child element within UC is limited to two children for new claims and new births (with exceptions including multiple births and women who can show that their third or subsequent child was conceived because of rape, see page 20). 


The charity Turn2us explains that: “Elements will continue to be included for all children who were part of the family before 6 April 2017.” 


The exception to this rule are families with three or more children making a new benefit claim. They can continue to make new claims for existing benefits and tax credits until at least February 2019.


Families with more than two children cannot make a new claim for UC until February 2019, even if they are in a UC full service area (see pages 10-11). 


The “first child premium” within UC (equivalent to the family element within tax credits and worth up to £545 a year) was abolished for new claims from April 2017. Families already receiving these allowances will receive transitional protection for both measures (see page 17). 


New conditionality rules introduced in April 2017 mean that parents who want to claim UC are now expected to have work-focused interviews when their youngest child turns one, start work preparation when their youngest child turns two, and look for work when their youngest child turns three.


General secretary of public services union UNISON, Dave Prentis, described the “two-child limit” as divisive and dangerous: 


“It is the worst kind of government policy — moralistic, judgmental and ineffective — and it will cost many families around £2,800 a year if they have a third child and £5,600 if they have a fourth,” he said. “These are families already struggling to make ends meet, in a difficult economic climate, after years of cuts and austerity. Especially those who work in our public services, who face the double whammy of the pay cap coupled with spiralling inflation.”


UNISON’s 2018 women’s conference voted against the two-child limit and the so-called “rape clause”, which it says means that women who have been raped can apply for exemption by “labelling their child a child of rape”. 


Women who have a third child as a result of rape have to prove it to a “professional third party”, such as doctors and nurses and social workers, and they must declare on a DWP form that they do not live with their attacker.


“This must be one of the UK government’s cruellest policies ever policies,” said UNISON president Margaret McKee. The union says the clause: stigmatises the child; forces a woman to admit and prove she has been raped, and to deal with the trauma in a manner which she may not have chosen; it also apparently negates the law in that marital rape is a crime, punishable in law, but this benefit does not apply if the woman remains in a relationship with her rapist; it forces healthcare professionals to act as gatekeepers for the benefit system; and is totally unworkable in practice.


Impact of Universal Credit on free school meals


PCS warned that there was no trigger mechanism built into the UC system for free school meal entitlement to take the place of the trigger mechanism under existing systems. The government has introduced means testing for free school meal entitlement for children in Year 3 and above. This means that families on UC are no longer entitled to free school meals if their parents earn more than £7,400 a year from work. The government estimates: “A typical family earning around this threshold, depending on their exact circumstances, would have a total annual household income of between £18,000 and £24,000 once benefits are taken into account.”. 


An analysis by the general GMB union found that only the lowest earning 20% of households will be eligible to free school meals under the new rules. It reported that 65% of expenditure on free school meals currently benefits households outside this group, strongly suggesting “significant loss of free school meals entitlement for thousands of pupils”. 


In February 2018, the Children’s Society expressed deep disappointment that the government was pressing ahead with the proposals, warning that the plans that will see a million children in poverty miss out on free school meals under UC. 


“This will disadvantage poor children from working families and mean some parents will be better off taking a pay cut,” the charity said.


“This arbitrary £7,400 earnings cap, which takes no account of household need or the number of children that parents need to provide for, will force people to negotiate down their working hours or leave work altogether just to make ends meet,” said GMB general secretary Tim Roache. “It makes a mockery of the government’s claim that it is making work pay.”


Childcare costs


There is an additional element of support to help towards a percentage of the costs of registered childcare. This is 85% of childcare costs, capped at £646.35 a month for one child or £1,108.04 for two or more children per month. This is available to all lone parents and couples where both members work, regardless of the number of hours they work. There is no longer a requirement to work at least 16 hours.



Work allowances


A work allowance is an amount of money that a person (or their partner) who is responsible for children, or who has a disability or health condition that affects their ability to work, can earn before their benefit starts to be reduced. From April 2017, once earnings exceed the work allowance, UC entitlement is reduced by 63% of the excess.


The amount they can earn before UC begins to be cut is £397 a month if the claimants do not require the housing element, and £192 a month if they do. 



Although changes to the work allowance rules simplified the system by bringing rates in line with the needs of the household as opposed to the claimant, they are significantly less generous. Before the changes were introduced in April 2016, a single claimant with one or more dependent children and no housing benefit, was able to earn £734 a month before their entitlement was reduced.
For joint claimants with children, the total was £536. 


According to the TUC, the chancellor is expected to save £2.85 billion in 2019-20 and £3.19 billion in 2020-21 from changes to the work allowances. The lone parent charity Gingerbread estimates the cut means the average single parent loses £800 a year, and some will lose over £2,000 compared to current benefits. The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) says that the cuts to UC, which originally promised to lift 350,000 children out of poverty, will now mean one million more children in poverty than under its original design.