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Two-child benefit cap amounts to eugenics, public health expert claims ahead of MPs' vote
23 July 2024, 18:36
Sir Michael Marmot says two-child benefit cap is 'almost a form of eugenics'
A public health expert has claimed that the two-child benefit cap is tantamount to eugenics, ahead of a vote in the Commons on Tuesday evening.
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Michael Marmot, a professor of public health at UCL, told LBC's Andrew Marr that the cap was harmful to children's wellbeing.
He said: "These children can't wait and it also bothers me of what it says about us as a society. It's almost a form of eugenics saying if poor families choose to have extra children, we're going to clobber them.
"If you consign something like 1.6 million children to further hardship, that's going to affect their trajectory for the rest of their lives.
"I can't tell you how to juggle public sector pay and child poverty but it will damage children's mental health, their physical health, we know the stress of poverty in parents gets passed onto the children."
The government disappointed some of its MPs in the King's Speech by not axing the benefits cap, which limits universal credit and child tax credits to parents' first two children. Keir Starmer launched a 'child poverty taskforce'.
'There is nobody in Labour who supports the two-child benefit cap'
Several Labour MPs on the left of the party are set to vote for an SNP amendment this evening that proposes ending the cap.
Many Labour MPs oppose the cap, brought in by the Conservatives in 2017 - but it has been estimated that getting rid of it would cost taxpayers £3 billion per year - and the government has said they are unwilling to break their strict fiscal rules to fund new measures.
But MPs such as former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, and member for Liverpool Riverside Kim Johnson, have said they back the cap because they want to reduce child poverty.
Mr McDonnell said: "I don't like voting for other party's amendments, but I am following [Sir] Keir Starmer's example, as he said 'put country before party'.
Caller says we need 'bigger picture' beyond two-child cap
"So, I am putting lifting children out of poverty before party whipping."
The SNP's Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said earlier that by backing his amendment, "MPs across the chamber will have the opportunity to scrap the two child cap and lift thousands of children out of poverty."
He added: "Scrapping the cap is the bare minimum required to tackle the appalling levels of child poverty in the UK."
The amendment is backed by the Green Party, Plaid Cymru, the SDLP, the Alliance Party and several independent MPs, such as former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Children's commissioner Rachel de Souza has also previously called for the cap to be lifted.
She told Andrew earlier this month: "Of course, for equity’s sake we need to make sure that cap is lifted and frankly it is a moral case for me, but it also bakes in poverty.
"If you’re trying to have a long-term solution to child poverty, then it has just got to be lifted. So, I would just get on with it really and with the mandate this new government has got I would really like to see it lifted."
Ms de Souza said she welcomed the idea of a child poverty taskforce, but added that she wanted to make sure that "the voices of children are in it".
