Tackling Child Poverty
Policy motion
Submitted by: Young Liberals and 13 party members
Mover: Hina Bokhari AM
Summation: Cllr Simon McGrath
Conference notes that:
- Children are the most likely group in society to be in poverty.
- DWP figures for 2022/23 show 3.6m children living in absolute poverty after housing costs.
- 1.6m children in 440,000 families are affected by the two-child benefit cap and in over 59% of these families at least one parent is in paid work.
- Abolition of the two-child benefit cap would take 300,000 children out of poverty.
- The impact of the cap is greater on families with an ethnic minority background.
Conference welcomes the establishment of a Ministerial Taskforce on Child Poverty, and notes that the organisations invited to the initial meeting with the Secretary of State have called for the abolition of the two-child benefit cap.
Conference calls on the Government to immediately abolish the two-child benefit cap.
Applicability: Federal.
Mover: 7 minutes; summation of motion and movers and summation of any amendments: 4 minutes; all other speakers: 3 minutes. For eligibility and procedure for speaking in this debate, see page 8 of the agenda.
The deadline for amendments to this motion, see pages 10–11, and for requests for separate votes, see pages 7–8 of the agenda, is 09.00 Thursday 12 September. Those selected for debate will be printed in Conference Extra and Saturday’s Conference Daily.