Christmas pain

Families up and down the country will be desperately struggling at the worst time of the year as thousands will feel the full force of the government’s new benefit cap which many in Manchester were first hit with on Monday (December 12).

For others, the benefit cap came into force last month, frustrating many hopes for a happy Christmas.

The cap — which will reduce households’ total benefits entitlements to £20,000 outside London and £23,000 in the capital, down from £26,000 — will see some families losing up to £115 a week.

The benefits being cut as part of the cap reduction include child tax credit, jobseeker’s allowance, income support and child benefit, but some benefits such as disability living allowance are excluded.

Sudden and drastic

Labour MP Rebecca Long-Bailey for Salford and Eccles slammed the government for introducing a cap which will above all hit children the hardest as hundreds of her constituents will feel the brunt of the cap this week.

“While Theresa May promised to cut Corporation Tax in her Autumn Statement, she is taking food from the mouths of some of our poorest children,” she told the Mirror.

“For short-term savings, the government is creating long-term costs,” Long-Bailey added. “We know cases where the new cap threatens to make parents insolvent, meaning their children will get picked up by social services at great cost to the taxpayer.”

“Rather than investing for the future, the government is simply taking from the most vulnerable.

Salford mayor Paul Dennett agreed.

“The sudden and drastic nature of this cut to benefits is dangerous and alarming,” he said. “The main victims of the cap will be families who are receiving child benefit. What this means in practice is that children are going to bear the brunt of these cuts.

“Families who relied on this income are going to have the rug pulled from under their feet. Children growing up in poverty are faced with so many more challenges as a result.

“They are more likely to have poor diets, do poorly at school and have poor health,” Dennett added. “What we’re looking at is a situation where children are being made to pay the price for the economic mess that the Tories have created.”

‘Trivial’ savings

Last month, when the new benefit cap had first been introduced, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) likewise highlighted that the costs of the cap far outweigh any benefits.

When the government first devised this year’s benefits cap, it claimed that the reduction would save £100m per year — less than 1 per cent of the total £12bn in benefit bills savings it pledged to make during this parliament, savings that the IFS slammed as ‘trivial’.

The IFS has said that according to its own analysis of previous benefit caps, it is unlikely that households will respond by moving into work — undermining what the government said is the whole point of the cap in the first place.

Charities have said that two-thirds of those affected by the cap are unable to work in any case, because of caring responsibilities for very young children or long-term sickness or disability.

“It is an open question how [affected families] will adjust to the loss of income,” the IFS noted.

Children hit

It’s been estimated that more than 100,000 families will be hit by the benefit cap, with more than a quarter of a million children being affected.

The Children’s Society chief executive Matthew Reed lambasted the government for attacking vulnerable children.

“Given the Prime Minister’s aspiration of making Britain a country that works for everyone, it is deeply disappointing that the Government is pushing ahead with an ongoing agenda of cuts to financial support for children in low-income families,” he said.

“Making savings by cutting help for the poorest children is unnecessary and unfair.”

The previous benefit cap mostly affected families in London, but the new cap that’s come into force will see tens of thousands of households affected throughout the UK, in towns and cities where decent work is often scarce.

In the North West and West Midlands, for example, more than 12,000 households will be affected, while in Yorkshire an estimated 9,206 will be hit. In Scotland, nearly 7,000 families will bear the brunt of the new cap. The vast majority of these households have two or more children.

End benefit cap now call

Unite has long argued against the government’s benefit cap, which it argues will only plunge already vulnerable and struggling families further into hardship.

“The timing of the latest benefit cap could not have been worse — as people across the UK gear up for Christmas, tens of thousands of families are worrying whether they’ll even have a roof over their heads, much less whether they’ll have enough for gifts for their children,” said Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner.

“Prime minister Theresa May said that she would support ‘just about managing’ families — but what kind of support is it when those who are already ‘just about managing’ are hit by cuts which will throw these families, many of them with several children, into utter despair, unable to pay their bills at all or put food on the table?

“That the reduced benefits cap will hardly make a difference to public finances, while the government wastes billions in lowered corporation tax, clearly demonstrates that these policies are just part of their cruel ideology that dictates that the poor and vulnerable must always suffer at the expense of the rich.

“If this government truly wants to make Britain a fairer place for all, it can start by reversing the benefits cap now. The cap is not a necessity; it’s a political choice.”

As Unite continues to lobby against the cuts, it has also teamed up with the Trussell Trust food bank network and the Mirror’s Real Britain in a Christmas food bank appeal to reach out to, among others, those who are now newly suffering under the latest benefit cap.

Trussell Trust research has shown that those who have no other option but to use food banks turn to them primarily because of cuts or sanctions to their benefits.

Find out more about how you can help by supporting our Christmas appeal here.