Six Labour Members of Parliament who were suspended due to their opposition to the two-child benefit limit have urged Rachel Reeves to completely abolish the “cruel” policy. The MPs, including John McDonnell, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Ian Byrne, Apsana Begum, Richard Burgon, and Imran Hussain, sent a letter to the Chancellor ahead of the upcoming Budget, stating that the Labour government cannot justify maintaining the policy. They emphasized that eliminating the policy would demonstrate the government’s commitment to addressing the cost-of-living crisis affecting millions of struggling families.
The MPs criticized the two-child benefit limit for penalizing children based on their birth circumstances, asserting that no Labour government can morally support such a policy. They highlighted that over 100 children fall into poverty daily due to this cap and called for its immediate abolition, citing it as the most effective step the Labour Government could take to lift children out of poverty.
The pressure on Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves to reconsider or dilute the policy, initially implemented by George Osborne nearly a decade ago, is mounting. This policy restricts Child Tax Credits and Universal Credit to the first two children in a family and has been condemned by charities for perpetuating child poverty.
As the government prepares to reveal its child poverty review alongside the Budget, the Resolution Foundation think-tank cautioned that partial measures, such as moving to a three-child limit or reducing child benefits for additional children, would still result in higher child poverty rates by the end of the decade. Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, also called for the policy’s abolition and criticized the decision to revoke the whip from MPs who voted against it, stating that such punitive actions were not characteristic of past Labour governments.
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