Closes 18 Apr 2025
Opened 21 Feb 2025
Overview
This consultation seeks views on the Scottish Government’s proposed approach to mitigate the two-child cap policy applied by the UK Government. The two-child cap restricts support through Universal Credit (UC) to the first two children in a family except in some limited circumstances. The Scottish Government is committed to developing systems to alleviate the impact of the two-child cap in Scotland in 2026. The consultation paper sets out more fully the proposed approach which intends to deliver mitigation payments at pace and in line with the Scottish social security principles.
The Scottish Government is proposing to mitigate the two-child cap in Scotland by making a flat-rate payment equal to the UC child element for each third and subsequent child in Scotland.
Mitigation of the two-child cap is not a straightforward task. It will require significant policy and technical work to develop and implement an appropriate solution. This includes co-operation from the UK Government around systems development, data sharing and legislation. The technical delivery of the mitigation must carefully consider risks, issues and dependencies such as data sharing with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
The Social Security Programme has commenced the ‘discovery’ phase of the project, which will impact delivery options, including joint work with DWP to agree, build and test additional data sharing functions and create a joint delivery plan.
The responses to this consultation, alongside the outputs of that discovery process, will inform the Scottish Government’s approach to drafting the legislation that will be necessary to deliver the payments.
Read the consultation paper. The consultation paper contains full background information for this consultation. You may find it useful to read or refer to while responding.
Useful information about responding to this consultation
Why your views matter
We want to gather your views on the proposals to deliver mitigation payments to people in Scotland impacted by the UK Government’s two-child cap.
Your views will help to refine and develop the proposals laid out in the consultation. Responding to this consultation offers you the valuable opportunity to to help shape how the Scottish Government takes forward this important part of the fight against child poverty in Scotland.
The responses to this consultation will be analysed and used to inform the Scottish Government’s approach to drafting the legislation that will be necessary to deliver the payments. Once the responses have been analysed we will provide a further update to explain our next steps.
Give us your views Begin consultation
consult.gov.scot/social-security/mitigation-of-the-two-child-cap-consultation
