In a key measure announced in the budget the two-child limit on benefits will be lifted. This policy is supported by six out of ten evangelical Christians, whereas less than a quarter want to retain the cap. This is the opposite of opinion in the general public, where six out of ten support retaining the policy, and a quarter want to scrap it, including 53% of people who voted for Labour in 2024.
In recent months there has been widespread pressure on the government to make this change, with many anti-poverty groups campaigning on this issue as a primary way to tackle child poverty. The change has also been heavily anticipated prior to the budget announcement.
In a recent survey from the Evangelical Alliance, more than 1,400 evangelical Christians provided their opinion on a wide range of contemporary policy issues. Over the coming weeks we will be providing more information and analysis of evangelical opinions on a wide range of issues including immigration, abortion and digital ID cards.
Evangelical attitudes towards welfare policy
A majority of evangelicals surveyed also supported the removal of the winter fuel allowance as a universal benefit for all pensioners. However, more somewhat supported this measure (30%) than strongly supported it (23%). Thirty-four percent of evangelicals opposed this change.
Evangelical Christians were also asked which groups in society they would like to see spending rise in relation to. A majority favoured increased spending to support people in work but on low incomes, households with children and people with disabilities – with the highest support for the first group. For other categories, such as pensioners, young people out of work, and people seeking asylum, the most common response was to keep the level of spending the same, with the lowest support for people seeking asylum. It should be noted that benefits available for people seeking asylum are already extremely limited.
Over 80% of evangelicals surveyed supported withholding benefits from people who choose not to work, with only 12% disagreeing with this approach. In general, however, evangelical Christians demonstrate widespread support for taxation being used to support those in society with the least. Two thirds of evangelicals (67%) agreed with the statement: “I would personally be willing to pay more tax to support those in greatest need”, whereas only 15% disagreed with this statement.
An important caveat to note in relation to these findings is that we did not ask how any increased spending would be paid for, aside from that last general question relating to taxation to support those in need. This may illustrate a general support for more generous welfare and benefit policies among evangelicals than in the UK as a whole.
How would evangelicals vote if there was another election?
This is also interesting to observe in relation to current voting intentions of evangelical Christians. The same sample were asked how they would vote if there were an election now (the survey was conducted in early October 2025), and how they voted in July 2024.
Labour would remain the party attracting the most support, with 26%, but this is down from 37% of respondents who voted for them last year. The Conservative Party came second in support last year, with 26%, but this has now reduced to 18%. Reform UK are now supported by 20% of those surveyed, which is the same as for the Liberal Democrats – however Reform UK have increased their support from 8% at the election last year. The Green Party have also seen a doubling of their vote share, from 6% to 12%.
We can also compare these findings to a separate survey conducted in November 2023 by the Evangelical Alliance, which found that 42% of evangelicals surveyed would vote for Labour, and 29% would support the Conservatives.
One of the notable findings of this survey is the very large degree of volatility among evangelical voters; nearly half had changed how they would vote compared to last year’s election. However, this movement is mostly from Conservatives to Reform UK, and from Labour to the Liberal Democrats or Green Party. The overall share of support for those on the left and those on the right is fairly stable.
Through our regular surveys and interaction with evangelical Christians around the UK we know that there is a wide diversity of political opinions and party preferences. We want to encourage Christians to think biblically about the breadth of politics and policy issues, perhaps especially in areas where we may disagree on the specific policies we would want the government to pursue. Over the coming weeks we will be reporting on further findings from our latest survey.
