{"id":11590,"date":"2025-06-04T09:29:53","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T13:29:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2025\/06\/04\/worcester-foodbank-manager-hits-out-at-two-child-benefit-cap\/"},"modified":"2025-06-04T09:29:53","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T13:29:53","slug":"worcester-foodbank-manager-hits-out-at-two-child-benefit-cap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2025\/06\/04\/worcester-foodbank-manager-hits-out-at-two-child-benefit-cap\/","title":{"rendered":"Worcester foodbank manager hits out at two-child benefit cap"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"__next\">\n<header><\/header>\n<nav data-testid=\"level1-navigation-container\" id=\"main-navigation-container\">\n<section>\n<nav>\n<ul>\n<li data-testid=\"mainNavigationItemStyled\"><\/li>\n<li data-testid=\"mainNavigationItemStyled\"><\/li>\n<li data-testid=\"mainNavigationItemStyled\"><\/li>\n<li data-testid=\"mainNavigationItemStyled\"><\/li>\n<li data-testid=\"mainNavigationItemStyled\"><\/li>\n<li data-testid=\"mainNavigationItemStyled\"><\/li>\n<li data-testid=\"mainNavigationItemStyled\"><\/li>\n<li data-testid=\"mainNavigationItemStyled\"><\/li>\n<li data-testid=\"mainNavigationItemStyled\"><\/li>\n<li data-testid=\"mainNavigationItemStyled\"><\/li>\n<li data-testid=\"mainNavigationItemStyled\"><\/li>\n<li data-testid=\"mainNavigationItemStyled\"><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/nav>\n<\/section>\n<\/nav>\n<p><main id=\"main-content\"><\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"byline-new\" data-component=\"byline-block\">\n<div>\n<p><span>Tammy Gooding<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>BBC Hereford &#038; Worcester<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span>Tanya Gupta<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>BBC News, West Midlands<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<figure>\n<div data-component=\"image-block\">\n<p><span>PA Media<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p data-component=\"caption-block\"><figcaption>Graham Lucas says an &#8220;awful lot of families just haven&#8217;t got sufficient money&#8221; in Worcester<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p>A food bank manager has criticised the UK&#8217;s two-child benefit cap, saying many families in Worcester are struggling with food poverty.<\/p>\n<p>Graham Lucas, manager of Worcester Foodbank, spoke out as 11 charities including the national Trussell Trust food bank charity wrote to Chancellor Rachel Reeves urging her to make a commitment in next week&#8217;s spending review to abolish the limit.<\/p>\n<p>He said in Worcester &#8220;an awful lot of families just haven&#8217;t got sufficient money&#8221; to pay for household essentials.<\/p>\n<p>The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), which said it was &#8220;determined to bring down child poverty&#8221;, is expected to announce its decision on the cap in the autumn.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The letter sent by the charities to the chancellor claimed the two-child limit had pulled 37,000 children into poverty since the government took office.<\/p>\n<p data-component=\"subheadline-block\">\n<h2>&#8216;Cap exacerbates poverty&#8217;<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p>&#8220;The cap was not the right thing to be doing. It hits families unfairly and just causes them more problems with poverty, and particularly food poverty,&#8221; Mr Lucas continued.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We see at ground level and particularly see it in Worcester, a large number of families that are struggling, families that don&#8217;t have enough income.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The two-child benefit cap just exacerbates that and causes more families to be in food poverty and&#8230; roughly 40% of the people we feed are children.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mr Lucas said rising food costs had been a key problem and the cost-of-living crisis generally had caused more people to seek help.<\/p>\n<p>The BBC has approached the DWP for a response to Mr Lucas&#8217;s comments.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/main><\/p>\n<hr data-testid=\"main-footer-divider\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tammy Gooding BBC Hereford &#038; Worcester Tanya Gupta BBC News, West Midlands PA Media Graham Lucas says an &#8220;awful lot of families just haven&#8217;t got sufficient money&#8221; in Worcester A food bank manager has criticised the UK&#8217;s two-child benefit cap, saying many families in Worcester are struggling with food poverty. Graham Lucas, manager of Worcester [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,21,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-market","category-news","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}