Our 2021 Budget submission

Our submission to the UK government ahead of the 2021 Budget makes the following recommendations: 

• Use social security as an effective fiscal stimulus to help the economy recover from the pandemic
• Prioritise long-term productive employment over getting people back into any job quickly
• Invest in childcare, in particular extended schools, to help increase the labour market opportunities of parents
• Keep the £20 upratings – removing them would see 300,000 children pushed into poverty
• Scrap the benefit cap and two-child limit – this would only cost £1.4 billion and would pull 200,000 children out of poverty and 450,000 children out of deep poverty
• Increase child benefit by £10 a week – providing a small income boost to all families affected by COVID. This would reduce child poverty by 450,000
• Increase the eligibility threshold for free school meals to all families receiving universal credit or working tax credit