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<p>The Government’s view is that providing support for a maximum of two children or
qualifying young persons in Universal Credit and Child Tax Credits, ensures fairness
between claimants on the one hand and, on the other, those taxpayers who support themselves
solely through work.</p><p> </p><p>We recognise that some claimants are not able to
make the same choices about the number of children in their family, which is why exceptions
have been put in place to protect certain groups. On migration to Universal Credit,
families’ existing entitlement will be protected.</p><p> </p><p>The Department has
published an Impact Assessment which noted ethnic minority households may be more
affected by the policy. This is because on average, they are more likely to have larger
families and be in receipt of Child Tax Credits and Universal Credit. However, the
Department does not collect sufficiently robust data on our claimants’ ethnic or religious
backgrounds to facilitate a more detailed assessment of the policy’s impact on specific
ethnic or religious groups.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p>The Government has assessed
the impact of the policy from an equality and human rights perspective, meeting our
obligations under the Public Sector Equality Duty, and ensuring compliance with the
Human Rights Act 1998, the Equality Act 2010 and the UN Convention on the rights of
children.</p>
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