MSPs have condemned changes to child tax credits and a controversial provision known as the “rape clause”.
UK government welfare reforms cut child tax credit and Universal Credit for third or subsequent children.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon led a Holyrood debate saying parliament should be “fundamentally opposed” to the two-child policy.
However, Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson defended the plans on grounds of financial responsibility.
The welfare changes, which were announced in 2015 and came into effect from 6 April, limit tax credits to the first two children in a family, with exceptions for adoptions, those involved in kinship care and for children born as a result of “non-consensual conception”.
The terms of the latter exemption have proved controversial, with protest rallies held in Glasgow and Edinburgh and fiery exchanges in the Holyrood chamber.
These continued in the Scottish government-led debate, which saw a series of impassioned speeches – including one where Kezia Dugdale silenced the chamber by reading out an email from a rape victim.
Ms Sturgeon’s motion for the debate read that parliament should be “fundamentally opposed to the UK government’s imposition of the two-child limit”, as it “will push families into poverty”.
It also “utterly condemns the disgraceful and repugnant ‘rape clause'”, saying the policy is “unfair, unequal, morally unacceptable and deeply harmful to women and their children and a fundamental violation of women’s human rights”.
Source:BBC
