This week, we saw signs that more politicians are waking up to the need to better support British parents. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage announced that he wants to make it easier for people to have children. To that end, he pledged on Tuesday that a Reform government would abolish the two-child benefit cap.

The cap means that parents cannot claim the child element of Universal Credit for any third or subsequent children born after 2017 — when the measure was introduced — or Universal Credit’s legacy benefit, the Child Tax Credit. The two-child cap is popular with the public, perhaps because of a sense that people who cannot afford children should not have them.

But in a country with a falling birth rate and a rapidly ageing population, the cap is a deeply counterproductive policy. As well as pushing thousands of children into poverty — it already affects 450,000 families, who are not receiving Universal Credit support for their third children as a result — the policy sends the harmful message that parenting and children are not highly valued. This negative signal is amplified by a common misconception that the policy applies to Child Benefit. In fact, you can claim Child Benefit for however many children you have.

Also in the name of making it easier for Britons to have children, Farage pledged to introduce a transferable tax allowance between married couples. There is indeed unfairness in the tax system for households in which one partner is a higher earner and the other a lower earner. As tax policy expert Tom Clougherty has written, a household in which both partners earn £30,000 will pay a combined income tax amount of £11,156. But in a household where one partner earns £60,000 and the other nothing, for example because they are a stay-at-home parent, the household will owe £16,151 in income tax.

Yet a tax policy aiming to make life easier for parents would not be best focused solely on married couples. Over 50% of British children are born outside of marriage. How that relates to chance of parenthood is far from obvious: in ultra-low-fertility South Korea less than 5% of children are born outside marriage, whereas in higher fertility France the figure is over 60%.

Farage’s milk-and-honey promises for what a future Reform government would deliver for the British people are mounting up, from almost doubling the income tax threshold to lowering fuel duty to increasing defence spending to 3% of GDP. Analysis suggests that Reform’s plans would leave the UK with a deficit of between £70-80 billion a year. But despite the questionable fiscal feasibility of these economic policies, Farage is an astute politician and the fact that he has turned his attention to how to make life easier for British parents is noteworthy.

The total fertility rate in England and Wales has dropped to 1.44, the lowest since records began. In Scotland it’s 1.28, quickly closing in on famously low-fertility Japan. A major factor behind this decline in births is that British people feel increasingly priced out of parenthood. Pressures including high rents and house prices, childcare costs, and low statutory maternity and paternity pay mean that there is a parent gap opening up between the rich and poor. In the UK, wealthier people are increasingly likely to become a parent than their poorer counterparts.

Not everyone wants to be a mum or dad; but for those who do, being able to start a family matters a great deal. We parents want to see that the Government understands the value of what we are doing and is here for us. Farage’s promises indicate that he gets this.

As the UK’s birth rate continues to fall, and the social and economic consequences of that decline come home to roost, it is imperative that all politicians serious about delivering for the UK get it too. Britain’s parents don’t need fantasy economics, but they do need support.

---

Phoebe is director of Boom and Head of the New Deal for Parents campaign at Onward.

PMArslanagic

---