1,000 Powys kids hit by two child benefit cap

A local politician has urged the Welsh Government to convince Westminster to abolish a benefit cap that she claims impacts nearly 1,000 children in Powys.

Jane Dodds MS said the two-child benefit cap is plunging many of her constituents into tougher financial times with the Mid and West Wales Senedd Member telling First Minister, Eluned Morgan, to petition her Westminster Labour colleagues to scrap the cap.

Introduced in 2017, the cap limits parents from claiming a payment from the government to only their first two children.

Ms Dodds, who is also the Welsh Liberal Demicrats Leader, said that according to the “End Child Poverty Coalition”, a total of 990 Powys children were impacted by the two-child benefit cap last year. Representing 9% of all children in the county.

She highlighted Welsh Government statistics that revealed 43% of children in households containing three or more young people are now at risk of relative poverty, meaning that 100,000 children who are living in poverty come from households affected by the child benefit cap.

Several members of the current Welsh Government cabinet have previously advocated for the policy’s abolition, including the current Cabinet Secretary for Finance who described the two-child limit as “the single greatest driver of child poverty”.

Speaking in the Siambr yesterday, Ms Dodds said that “over the past six years, we here in Wales have seen a startling increase in the number of larger families living in relative poverty, which has been worsened by Labour’s baffling commitment to the child benefit cap”.

She added: “This is especially prevalent in my own constituency, where a worryingly high number of children are being affected by a policy which has widely been criticised as ‘cruel’ and a violation of children’s rights by numerous charities.

“This problem will only worsen if the Welsh Government continues to bury their heads in the sand. The First Minister must use her position to lobby the Prime Minister for the immediate abolition of this cap before even more Welsh Children fall into the grip of poverty.”