Alex Clegg

His album African Giant from 2019 is very good

Don't forget about us • Resolution Foundation This briefing note combines quantitative data with insights from focus groups to explore how disabilities and caring responsibilities affect these families’ lives and living standards.

ICYMI - new report out yesterday by me and Imogen Stone on how disabilities and caring affect low-to-middle income families, drawing on quant analysis and focus groups with disabled people and carers. Thread on key findings below 🧵 www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications...

Tonight, Rachel Reeves delivers her Mansion House speech, and we expect she’ll announce the long-awaited review into pension adequacy (alongside other reforms such as financial deregulation).

And, to reiterate, the two-child limit is one of the single biggest drivers of child poverty and scrapping it would lift around half a million children out of poverty almost overnight.

And data on ethnicity of affected households suggests Asian and Black families are over-represented among those affected by the two-child limit, though the big caveat here is that 37% reported their ethnicity as other or did not specify

Data on the age of the youngest child in affected households reminds us that this is a policy that currently affects young children, due to the nature of the roll-out:

8 per cent of households affected by the two-child limit are also affected by the benefit cap. These households will see no gain if the two-child limit is scrapped.

40 per cent of households affected by the two-child limit are receiving a health or disability benefit, and 1 in 4 affected households has a child who is receiving a disability benefit or is blind

59 per cent of households affected by the two-child limit have at least one person in work, and we now have data on affected households' conditionality groups, which shows 21% in the 'Working - no requirements' group, which generally means working full time.

450,000 households and more than 1.6 million children were affected by the two-child limit in April 2025, an increase of 13,000 households and 35,000 children compared to April 2024

Good question! No the data is just for families getting UC who are affected, so the true numbers of households and children affected will be higher than this

No it doesn't make a difference to LHA. LHA is determined by family size but also the age and sex of the children (some are expected to share a bedroom)

And, to reiterate, this policy is one of the biggest single drivers of child poverty, and scrapping it would lift around half a million children out of poverty almost overnight.

And we now have data on ethnicity of affected households. This shows Asian and Black families are slightly over-represented compared to the population, but the big caveat is nearly 4 in 10 affected households either didn't report their ethnicity or reported it as 'Other'

Looking at the age of affected household's youngest child reminds us that the policy currently hits those with young children due to the nature of the roll-out. And strikingly, 47 per cent of households affected by the two-child limit have not had a child while they were claiming Universal Credit

182,000 (40 per cent) of households affected by the two-child limit are receiving a health or disability benefit, and 113,000 have a child who is receiving a disability benefit or is blind

38,200 (8 per cent) of households affected by the two-child limit are also affected by the benefit cap. These households will see no gain if the two-child limit is scrapped and the benefit cap isn't.

59 per cent of affected households have at least one person in work, and we now have breakdowns by UC conditionality group, which show 21 per cent of affected households are in the 'Working - no requirements' group, which generally means working full-time.

The DWP published this year's stats on households impacted by the two-child limit today, which include some welcome new breakdowns on gender and ethnicity, receipt of health/disability benefits, conditionality group, and whether households are affected by the benefit cap. Quick thread/

Some more details this morning on the welfare bill concessions. Things we learn: 1) it is overall UC income that will be protected in real terms for existing recipients, so the UC-health element goes up somewhere between the original policy to freeze in cash terms and inflation.

Rules like this will likely continue to be up to each council

Crisis and Resilience Fund geeks now!

Renew and improve • Resolution Foundation This briefing note, part of the Safety Nets project, assesses how the Household Support Fund could be improved in a longer-term settlement, through analysis of administrative data and interviews with ...

See our @safety-nets.bsky.social / @resfoundation.bsky.social report from last month for more details on how the scheme can be improved for future years www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications...

But overall this is very welcome. The re-emergence of nationally-funded crisis support has been a welcome development over the last few years, and funding for multiple years is an important recognition that the need for it is ongoing.

An issue could arise from the extension of Free School Meals: many councils use large portions of their HSF funding to automatically provide vouchers to FSM-eligible families in the school holidays. So more children getting FSMs could mean that HSF funds for other needs will be squeezed.

The funding will stay at £1 billion in cash terms for each year of the Spending Review. This means that by 2028-29 the real value of the scheme will have declined by 32% since it was introduced in 2021.

The scheme will "incorporate" Discretionary Housing Payments so the £1 billion reflects the funding for this year (which was a cut from previous waves of the scheme which didn't include DHPs).

The Household Support Fund is now the 'Crisis and Resilience Fund' and will be funded at £1 bn/yr (incl. Barnett) until the end of 2028-29. The first multi-year funding will be very helpful for local authorities delivering the scheme as they can now plan, develop their approach, retain staff etc.

Today’s announcement will cost £1.25bn compared to the previous means-tested policy. The real question is why it is now a priority to pay Winter Fuel Payments to over three-quarters of pensioners when only last July it was judged that only 1-in-10 needed support.

The reported savings of £450m compared to a universal payment will be reduced by the cost of higher pension credit take-up as a result of the original policy (a good thing!), and the cost of administering the new means-test.