Labour need to remove two-child benefit cap immediately amid ‘unacceptable’ levels of poverty, MPs say

Debate over two-child benefit cap a ‘defining issue for the new Labour government’, John McDonnell says

Labour should remove the two-child benefit cap “immediately” to lift thousands of children out of poverty, MPs have said.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has come under pressure from her party’s backbenchers to lift the cap, which prevents almost all parents from claiming universal credit or child tax credit for a third child. The policy, which was brought in by David Cameron’s Conservative government, impacted 450,000 households and 1.6 million children last year according to official figures.

Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside Kim Johnson has tabled an amendment to the King’s Speech that would scrap the cap, with the proposal currently backed by 29 MPs. She told The Independent that the level of child poverty in her constituency was “unacceptable” and these children “can’t wait two years for a decision to be made”. She added: “Removing the two-child cap needs to be done and it needs to be done immediately”.

Her comments come as education secretary Bridget Phillipson said on Monday morning that she would consider scrapping the cap as part of the newly established Child Poverty Taskforce. The review was set up by prime minister Sir Keir Starmer last week in an apparent attempt to appease backbench MPs who want bolder action on child poverty.

A boy plays in the street near the Heron Cross pottery kiln in Stoke on Trent, England. 1.6 million children were affected by the two-child benefit cap last year, government figures show. (Getty Images)

“We are a rich country and we’ve got kids going hungry. It’s immoral and it should not be happening. We should be doing everything we can as soon as possible to lift children out of poverty and removing the two-child cap is one of the best, easiest ways of doing that,” Ms Johnson said.

Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside Kim Johnson has tabled an amendment to the King’s Speech to remove the two-child limit (PA)

Speaking about the new taskforce, Ms Johnson said: “It is a bit vague at this moment in time. In our manifesto we talked about an ambitious programme of policies to reduce child poverty. And I would have to say we’ve not seen anything at the moment. We’ve talked about breakfast clubs but lots of schools in my constituency already have them.”

Former chancellor John McDonnell told The Independent that the amendment had already pushed the two-child policy to the centre of debate on the King’s Speech. Reflecting on the new poverty task force, he said: “The problem with the task force process is that there is no commitment to scrap the two child limit or even a timescale for when the task force will even consider this issue.”

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson will consider removing the two-child benefit cap as part of the government’s child poverty taskforce (PA)

Ms Reeves said on Sunday that she would not commit to lifting the cap without being able to fully cost the change, which she says would be more than £3bn a year. “If we’re not able to say where the money is going to come from, we can’t promise to do it,” she told the BBC.

Her comments came as another Labour MP Rosie Duffield, who has backed Ms Johnson’s amendment, wrote in The Times that the two-child limit was a “heinous piece of legislation” that amounted to “social cleansing”.

Former prime minister Gordon Brown, who has called for the two-child limit to be removed, has put forward a number of proposals for acting on child poverty. These include raising £2bn by requiring banks to deposit a fraction of their money interest-free at the Bank of England.

Former prime minister and chancellor Gordon Brown has backed calls for the two-child limit to be scrapped (PA)

MPs will debate the King’s Speech in parliament and amendments are expected to be chosen on Monday. The SNP have also put down an amendment calling for the two-child benefit cap to be scrapped, which is more likely to be picked than the Labour amendment. This will put Labour MPs in the position of having to back another party if they want to vote to lift the cap.

This will not disuade Mr McDonnell however, who told The Independent: “I will continue to vote on every occasion for its scrapping. This is a defining issue for the new Labour government, whether it can combine compassion with practical policy making.”