Labour MPs and anti-poverty campaigners have attacked Keir Starmer’s commitment to keep the Conservatives’ controversial two-child benefit limit.
Starmer told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg show that Labour was “not changing that policy”, which has been widely criticised as unfair, cruel, ineffective on its own terms, and one of the biggest drivers of child poverty.
Meg Hillier, Labour MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch, and chair of the influential Commons public accounts committee, told the BBC’s Westminster Hour: “Well, I was never comfortable about having the child benefit cap come in … personally, I’d be lobbying for a lifting of that.”
Rosie Duffield, Labour MP for Canterbury, who is on the centre-right of the party, responded to Starmer’s comments by describing the two-child policy as “one of the most unpleasant pieces of legislation ever to have been passed in the UK”.
She tweeted: “It’s very rare for someone to enter the House of Commons having been on tax credits, but myself and a few others did in 2017; scrapping this cruel policy was one of our shared political motives.”
The two-child limit bars parents from claiming child tax credit or universal credit for any third or subsequent child born after April 2017. Affected low-income families are left at least £3,000 out of pocket. Larger families, and minority ethnic households are disproportionately affected.
It was designed to force parents of larger families to find a job or work more hours, but academic studies showed its main function has been to impoverish families rather than increase employment.
Starmer’s stance is seen by some in the party as failure of Labour’s determination to tackle child poverty. Nevertheless, some insiders have suggested Starmer – who said in 2020 he wanted to scrap it in order to help “tackle the vast social injustice in our country” – could revisit the policy if the public finances improved.
Abolishing the two-child limit would cost around £1.3bn, which shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves is reported to regard as unaffordable in the present economic climate. However, removing it would lift 250,000 children out of poverty and a further 850,000 children out of deep poverty. Campaigners say it is the most cost-effective way of reducing child poverty.
The Labour left has made clear it is opposed to Labour keeping the two-child cap. Birkenhead MP Mick Whitley tweeted: “The two-child cap is causing misery for thousands of young people in Birkenhead. This is the wrong call.”
Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell tweeted: “It’s pretty clear that we now need an honest and fundamental discussion in the Labour party about child poverty, its causes and the impact of the policies introduced by the Tories, including the two-child limit, because it’s obvious some in the party don’t fully appreciate its impact.”
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Labour’s refusal to commit to scrap the two-child limit was received with disappointment an incredulity among anti-poverty campaigners, social policy academics, and left-leaning thinktanks.
Former children’s commissioner Anne Longfield tweeted: “The two-child benefit cap is an unfair, bad policy, and it should be scrapped by whoever is in government.”
Andrew Harrop, general secretary of the Fabian Society thinktank, tweeted: “I’m not going to pretend I’m happy with Labour’s new line on the 2-child limit. It is a vicious policy that seeds child deprivation. And a nasty dog whistle (what sort of families have 3+ children in modern Britain?) Reversing it is fairly cheap & lasers in on hardship.”
Ruth Patrick, senior lecturer in social policy at York University and co-author of a research project into the two-child limit published on Monday, said: “The two-child limit must be abolished if Labour is to have any credibility as a party committed to tackling child poverty.
“Every day the two-child limit remains, more children are born into a country that does not provide adequate support for them to meet their most basic of needs. This can and must change, and any political party should be proud to be the one to make that change by abolishing the two-child limit.”
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