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Welfare Reform and Work Bill
went through third reading this week and no-one even seems to notice. 2-child policy, oh ok….
DWP has issued an updated paper on delegated and secondary legislation arising from the Bill following it being sent to the House of Lords -
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/welfare-reform-and-work-bill-2015-delegated-powers
Research briefing on the Bill from the House of Lords Library - http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/LLN-2015-0042
The government has been challenged to justify an “incredibly distasteful” proposal in Wednesday’s budget which would require a woman who had a third child as the result of rape to justify her position in order to avoid losing tax credits.
The plans to restrict child tax credits to two children for new claimants from 2017 incorporate a number of exemptions, including multiple births, and set out that “the Department for Work and Pensions and HMRC will develop protections for women who have a third child as a result of rape or other exceptional circumstances”.
Alison Thewliss, SNP MP for Glasgow Central, who first drew attention to the clause on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon, described what would inevitably result in a woman having to prove to a DWP official that she had been raped as appalling.
Not much I can add, except to say that I agree with Ms Thewliss.
MP challenges child tax credit plan that could require women to prove rape
Quoting myself here, but have just come across this news story in the Guardian.
The government’s decision to limit a family’s child tax credits to two children, unless a further child is the result of rape, has been referred to a United Nations panel.
A complaint by the SNP MP Alison Thewliss to the UN will be examined by its official committee on the rights of the child, before hearings on the impact of Britain’s welfare policies next week.
At the evidence sessions, a UK government delegation will have to explain how its recent welfare reforms conform to its UN obligations on child poverty.
Of all the measures in the Act, this is the one that I am most surprised did not generate much more comment and debate than it did. Whether this intervention will actually enable anything to be done remains very much a moot point, but I would have expected much more strident campaigning to have taken place on such a contentious policy than has previously been the case.
UN asks government to explain two-child cap on child tax credits
I’m wondering about the impact of the family element cut in CTC.
At the moment getting ‘more than the family element’ is an important route to SSMG for working parents having a first child.
Does anyone know if this is going to change?
This may be somewhere else on the discussion forum in which case please let me know!
I’m wondering about the impact of the family element cut in CTC.
At the moment getting ‘more than the family element’ is an important route to SSMG for working parents having a first child.
Does anyone know if this is going to change?
This may be somewhere else on the discussion forum in which case please let me know!
Oh come on Will, you’re surely not expecting a sensible thought-through piece of policy making are you?
This is just one of many “tweaks” to the social security system in the name of generating savings that are making the whole thing completely incoherent and nonsensical. There was a mini-discussion here last year Welfare reform changes - unclear but nothing more that I know about.
I think they’ve probably got some civil servants locked in a basement at Caxton House whose job it is to try and write the regulations and look at making necessary changes but there are all kinds of areas now where previously clear and straightforward aspects of passporting and eligibility have become torturously complicated and complex.