Overview
- Legislation abolishing the two-child limit in Universal Credit and Child Tax Credit has received Royal Assent and will apply from April 6, with existing Universal Credit claims updated automatically.
- From April, families can receive the child element for every eligible child, and the annual uprating raises this element by 3.8% to about £3,650 per child per year.
- Government estimates indicate up to 1.5 million children could benefit overall, with 450,000 fewer children in poverty by the end of the Parliament.
- Around 60% of households affected by the former limit have a working parent, and nearly half were not on Universal Credit when their children were born.
- Some gains will be curtailed by the benefit cap—about 50,000 families may see no increase and a further 10,000 may not get their full entitlement—and new UC health element awards for first-time claimants fall from £94 to £50 a week.