Oliver Coppard: Government needs 'fundamentally different approach' to tackle child poverty

Speaking to The Star during the opening of a new community hub in Sheffield, Mayor Coppard said he had seen more of Keir Starmer’s new government in two weeks than he had seen of the previous government “in two years”.

The issue of the two-child benefit cap, introduced by the Conservatives in 2017, appears to be dividing Mr Coppard’s party in Westminster, as seven MPs who voted against the party whip in favour of scrapping the measure were suspended for six months.

The Mayor said: “I am really pleased we are having a debate as a country about child poverty because for 14 years, frankly, we haven’t had enough.

“People have different views about the two-child cap and, ultimately, we all want to address child poverty... but what we need actually is a long term plan to address not just the consequences of child poverty, but the causes of child poverty.”

On Wednesday, July 24, 2024, Mayor Coppard visited 10 Downing Street in London, after missing the arranged meeting with all the ‘Metro Mayors’ across the country when he caught Covid-19.

In his conversation with The Star’s Harry Harrison (which you can watch in full at the top of this page), Mayor Coppard said neither child poverty nor the two-child benefit cap were topics of conversation during his meeting with policy leaders - instead focussing on other issues like public transport.

When pressed on whether he thought the cap should be scrapped, Mayor Coppard said: “I think they should come up with a fundamentally different approach to child poverty.

“What the Labour government said before they were elected was ‘these are the things we think we can do and these are the things we want to do longer term’ and, I think, as they have said they’ve got to do those things they promised the country first and foremost.

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“It’s been two weeks, so lets give them a bit of time and space and let them come up with those strategies and we will support them all the way.”

Data from the Department for Work and Pensions suggests 1.6million children in the UK are affected by the two-child benefit cap. The legislation prevents parents from claiming benefits for more than two children.

Whilst most of the pressure within Parliament to scrap the cap has come from the left, former Conservative Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, who abstained from the vote on Tuesday, told the House of Commons the measure had not worked to stop people having more children.

She added: “I believe that the cap is aggravating child poverty, and it is time for it to go.”