UK: Bishops on upcoming election. Poverty increases: special attention to families, children and persons with disabilities

More subsidies for the poorest families and, most importantly, the removal of the two-child cap, the limit introduced in 2017 by then-Prime Minister Theresa May, which stipulates that important subsidies and tax cuts such as the Child Tax Credit and the Universal Credit are granted only for the first two children. Therefore, the English Catholic Bishops, in a section on the website of the Bishops' Conference on the upcoming general election on 4 July, call on political parties to consider these measures as actions of fundamental importance. The Bishops also suggest that Catholics ask the candidates they intend to vote for whether they support policies that reduce the cost of housing and what taxes they plan to introduce or remove that impact households with caring responsibilities for children, elderly or persons with disabilities. The Bishops recall how the cost of living crisis and rising taxes impoverished many families, and how, even before the rise in energy and food prices, nearly 10% of adults and 7% of children in the UK lacked basic necessities to survive. Both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party, which is leading in the polls by 25 percentage points, are promising not to raise taxes but, according to experts, they will backtrack on their promises once in power. According to polls, voters also believe that taxes will rise.
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