Chancellor Rachel Reeves has indicated she intends to scrap the two-child benefit cap entirely in her forthcoming budget, telling the BBC that no child should be “penalised because they are in a bigger family through no fault of their own.”
In an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live, Reeves said it was unfair to penalise children in larger families and pointed to the economic costs of unchecked child poverty. “I don’t think we can lose sight of the costs to our economy in allowing child poverty to go unchecked,” she said.
Reeves acknowledged that families may have three or four children for various reasons, such as a parent developing a chronic illness or dying. She emphasised that the last Labour government had proudly reduced child poverty and that the current government would do the same.
The comments go further than earlier reports, which suggested Reeves would merely ameliorate the impact of the cap, possibly by introducing a three-child limit. The full abolition appears to reflect the influence of former prime minister Gordon Brown, who has lobbied strongly for the change.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has also been a consistent advocate for lifting the cap, viewing it as the most effective way to reduce child poverty. An ally noted that Starmer is determined that child poverty should not rise on his watch and wants his record to surpass that of Tony Blair.
