- On a budget… - 3rd November 2025
- Radio wails - 31st October 2025
- Andy Pandy - 30th October 2025
News now that the two-child benefit cap will be scrapped in next month’s UK budget is likely to be welcomed by Wales’ First Minister (WFM), who has called the restriction “damaging”, although she may be less pleased by the dire warnings of the consequences if the Welsh one does not pass.
Eluned Morgan has declared that the cap “prevents most families from claiming means-tested benefits for any third or additional children born after April of that year”.
According to the most recent UK Government statistics 21,000 families in Wales were affected by it in April 2024, and Ms Morgan’s concerns may be eased.
Her Labour colleague Rachel Reeves is to lift the two-child benefit limit, with officials exploring options of a tapered system instead.
The Chancellor and Sir Keir Starmer have both said they expect to respond to recommendations of the child poverty taskforce at the budget, which is expected to say that lifting the two-child limit for universal credit and child tax credit would be one of the most effective ways to lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty.
The information could please Ms Morgan, although she is likely to be less impressed by the possible effects if her Welsh Government’s (WG) budget doesn’t gain approval.
There have been warnings that it would be “almost impossible” for the newly-expanded Welsh Parliament/Senedd Cymru (WP/SC) to function without it passing after the election next year.
The cost of running the WP/SC is to go up from £84 million this year to £102.6 million in the 2026-27 financial year.
The increase will fund changes which include £12.7 million for 36 new WP/SC members who will be elected to represent Welsh voters in May.
However the Senedd Commission (which runs the workings of the WP/SC) is funded by the WG’s budget, which could be jeopardised next year.
The Presiding Officer (PO) Elin Jones has proclaimed that a blocking of the budget makes for : “… a very, tough task…an almost impossible task for the running of this Senedd with 96 members to be funded within that envelope that would be available to the Senedd.
“… it would be so difficult to think about how that what that would mean, both for commission staff and the numbers of commission staff and, dare I suggest, the payment of salaries of Senedd members ourselves or whoever they may be, who are returned”.
If the WG fails to get a budget through there could be huge consequences, she has said.
The political make-up of the WP/SC since 2021’s election has meant the WG needed help to get the budget passed.
The Welsh nationiaist party Plaid Cymru (Plaid) previously gave assistance, but last year it was the vote of the sole Liberal Democrat (LD) member Jane Dodds which meant the budget passed.
The by-election, called in the wake of the death of Caerphilly’s Labour representative Hefin David, means because the party failed to win the seat it may need further help from elsewhere in the WP/SC to get past that crucial halfway point.
Ms Morgan has also weighed in to outline what could happen, and has warned politicians there would be “significant cuts” if the budget doesn’t pass.
She said in Plenary on September 23: “There is an obligation on us, as a Senedd, to pass the budget because the consequences of not passing a budget are extremely serious for the people that we represent.
“I think this will be a test of how reckless other parties may be. I think there’s a real threat that, if we fail to pass this budget, there will be a 25 per cent cut to that budget. People need to really focus on what that might mean.”
So budget affairs are a minefield, and, as Ms Morgan might say, they can be extremely ‘damaging’…
The memories of our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry’s, astonishing decades-long award-winning career in journalism as he was gripped by the rare disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
Tomorrow – how disturbing news that in a huge survey of audiences many view the UK’s biggest broadcaster as not independent, puts centre stage why the BBC’s Tim Davie may lose his job, as well as executives REFUSAL to answer The Eye’s questions about the list of appalling scandals.
