‘Labour’s two-child cap victory rings hollow while asylum-seeking children remain in poverty’

The Government has finally scrapped the pernicious two-child benefit cap. Cue an avalanche of self-congratulatory posts from Labour MPs online. “This is the difference a Labour Government makes” cheered one backbencher. “Labour values in action” celebrated another. MPs even lined up to pose with Reeves and McFadden holding up “I just voted to lift 450,000 children out of poverty” posters.

Resisting the urge to point out that a year ago voting for those ‘Labour values’ was enough to lose you the whip, and the notable absence of “I just voted against lifting 450,000 children out of poverty” photo-ops for those who didn’t rebel last time – there’s a more pressing absence here, and it’s the children Labour are not lifting out of poverty.

Children and families in the asylum system are suffering what NGOs describe as ‘destitution by design’. People seeking asylum are subject to No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) – so no access to Universal Credit or Child Benefit. Parents are legally banned from working to support their children. They can only apply for permission to work after a year of awaiting a decision on their asylum claim, and even if granted, they are then limited to roles like ‘classical ballet dancer’ on the highly restrictive Immigration Salary List.

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The only reprieve for children awaiting refugee-status is Asylum Support – a paltry amount the Government has a statutory duty to provide those who pass a destitution test. £7 a day in dispersal accommodation. £1.42 a day for those warehoused in camps, barracks and hotels. This measly poverty packet does not even cover the barest of necessities. 91% of families on asylum support struggle to afford food, 95% struggle to afford public transport for essential travel like the school run, and 97% struggle to afford clothes and school uniforms. 

Surely, Labour MPs admiring their moral credentials for scrapping the two-child benefit cap are equally committed to ensuring sanctuary-seeking children are not languishing in poverty? Sadly, not.

They are in fact looking to extend NRPF-status to newly recognised refugees and other migrants, leaving even more children without a safety net. They are doubling down on the work ban. For parents who are driven into exploitative work in the shadow economy – Labour gleefully posts videos of violent and traumatic raids at their expense on official Government channels, whilst wilfully ignoring that scrapping the ban would help lift asylum seeking children out of poverty, and could generate £1.6 billion of that ‘growth, growth, growth’ Starmer is so keen on. 

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They are even consulting on dropping the legal duty to provide financial support to destitute asylum-seeking families altogether in place of a discretionary ‘power’ and aim to implement 2016 Immigration Act provisions that would strip all support from families whose claims have been rejected and have yet to deport themselves. Asylum decision-making is so poor that many rejections are overturned on appeal, so this would equate to forcing refugee families to choose between street homelessness in the UK or a return to the peril from which they had fled.

Tackling child poverty is a central mission of Labour governments. Brown called it a “scar on the soul of our nation”. Wilson said, “the Labour Party is a moral crusade, or it is nothing.” 

Scrapping the two-child cap is obviously a welcome reprieve for thousands of families. But despite Labour MPs patting themselves on the back, their moral crusade only extends to certain children. Not only are they opting against lifting asylum-seeking kids out of poverty, they are actively and aggressively impoverishing them further. 

Who became a Labour MP to do that?

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