Board of Deputies and Charedi leaders have met Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Owen Smith to discuss the “serious challenges” larger families can expect to face under the new Welfare Act.

Child benefit will now be limited to two children, and there is a concern that large families, particularly in the Charedi community, will lose out.

At the meeting Mr Smith pledged to support the Jewish community in opposing the legislation.
He said: “Labour has consistently opposed these measures, which will penalise children and drive up child poverty.

“The Board of Deputies’ delegation today highlighted serious concerns about how the Act will have particularly negative impacts on minority communities.

“The Tories must look again at this issue and change this deeply damaging legislation, which will have discriminatory impact on a number of Jewish families.”

Board chief executive, Gillian Merron, said she was “deeply concerned about the consequences of the legislation for larger families in our community.”

She said: “In theory, the reforms are supposed to encourage more people in to work, but as it currently stands they look set to have the opposite effect.”

Rabbi Avrohom Pinter principal of Yesodei HaTorah Senior Girls’ School in Stamford Hill said: “The consequences of this change could be very serious for thousands of working families in the fastest growing part of the Jewish community.

“I truly believe that the two-child limit breaches human rights and equalities principles. There could also be serious unplanned consequences – like a death, redundancy or the onset of a disability – which could suddenly throw a family in to dire poverty, are not justifiable.

“A compassionate society should not punish those who fall in to difficult circumstances through no fault of their own. “