The government's decision to freeze child benefit between 2011 and 2014 will cost families with two children more than £400, TUC analysis reveals.

Cuts in welfare, age-related tax benefits, child benefit and the minimum wage will combine with high joblessness and price increases to heighten austerity.

Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders have issued a joint call for the government's household welfare benefit cap to exclude child benefit.

Universal child benefit should be abolished and tax credits used to bolster the income solely of poor families, says the head of Barnardo's children's charity.