DWP urged to rethink the two child Universal Credit cap

Money Box

BBC

Business

4.2 • 804 Ratings

🗓️ 5 June 2021

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Children’s Commissioner for Wales Professor Sally Holland explains why she, along with the Commissioners for Scotland and Northern Ireland, want the DWP to drop a Universal Credit entitlement rule introduced by the coalition government in 2017. It only provides support for a maximum of two children with a few specific exceptions. Money Box reporter Joice Etutu hears from some of the thousands of people who have received random cheques from HSBC Banking Group. Amounts vary from tens to thousands of pounds. They’re still also being sent out to the group’s M&S Bank, first direct and John Lewis Finance customers who had arrears on loans between 2010 and 2019. Many thought it was a scam, but it’s not. EU citizens who want to continue living in the UK are in danger of missing a crucial deadline which could see them lose access to benefits and the right to work. June the 30th is the last date to apply for the EU settlement scheme which allows people to retain their legal status post Brexit. However there’s concern many won’t realise they have to do it. Guest: Kate Smart, Chief Executive of the charity Settled. The ban on bailiff-enforced evictions in England was an emergency measure to protect renters in arrears related to the pandemic. It ended this week so where does that leave renters who are still having money problems and what other changes might be on the way for them - and their landlords? Meera Chindooroy, Deputy Director of Campaigns, Public Affairs & Policy for the National Residential Landords Association and Chris Wood Assistant Director of Policy at Shelter discuss. Presenter: Paul Lewis Reporter: Joice Etutu Researcher: Stefania Okereke Producer: Charmaine Cozier Editor: Alex Lewis

Transcript

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0:00.0	In Northern Ireland, from the late 70s to the early 90s, the IRA killed over 40 alleged informers.
0:08.0	But the man who often found, tortured and sometimes killed these people on behalf of the IRA
0:12.0	was himself an informer, a secret British army agent with the codename Stakeknife.
0:18.0	Who gets to play God? And why me? Why my family? When lies are still being told to this day,
0:24.0	who do you believe? I wouldn't even know where to start and I'm with the IRA.
0:28.5	Steakknife. Listen first on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to this Moneybox podcast.
0:40.3	EU citizens living in the UK have less than four weeks to apply for settled status to keep their right to work and claim benefits.
0:47.8	HSBC has been sending compensation checks to thousands of customers, but it's not saying much about why.
0:53.6	And as the eviction
0:54.9	ban in England comes to an end, when is the government going to fulfil its promise to end
0:59.3	arbitrary evictions altogether? But first, China has announced the end of its two-child policy,
1:05.3	leaving parents there free to have a third if they wish. The only remaining countries in the
1:09.9	world now, with a two-child policy are
1:12.1	the communist state of Vietnam and, yes, the UK. Here, any third or subsequent child born
1:18.9	on or after the 6th of April 2017 is ignored when entitlement to universal credit is worked out.
1:25.3	So parents have to feed and clothes third or forced children
1:28.9	from the money for the first two. The policy was introduced in 2017 by former Chancellor George
1:34.8	Osborne to save a billion pounds a year. One mother affected is Vivienne. The two-child policy
1:41.2	limit affects me greatly due to the fact that obviously I have three children.
1:47.4	When I had my third child, I wasn't in the position to need universal credits.
1:54.0	And I never expected that I'd need to use them.
1:57.7	Since the pandemic hit, being furloughed, then on maternity leave and I've been on a zero-hour
	...

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