“This autumn, the Government will publish its long-delayed Child Poverty Strategy. That strategy will be meaningless if it fails to scrap the two-child cap.”
By Imran Hussain MP
Let me be very clear: scrapping the two-child benefit cap is morally right.
It is the most cost-effective, immediate, and powerful lever we have to lift children out of poverty. Yet this cruel Tory policy continues to punish families simply for having three or more children, pushing hundreds of thousands into unnecessary hardship.
Every single day, 109 more children are forced into poverty because of this cap. That’s 109 lives blighted daily by a political choice. And in Britain in 2025, nearly 1.7 million children are now affected — almost one in nine across the UK.
In Bradford East, where half of all children are already growing up in poverty, the impact is especially devastating.
The evidence is overwhelming
The Child Poverty Action Group has been crystal clear: abolishing the two-child limit would immediately lift 350,000 children out of poverty and reduce the depth of poverty for another 700,000. That’s over a million young lives transformed overnight, at a cost to the Treasury of around £2 billion — far less than many other reforms with a weaker impact.
Other proposals, such as raising the child element of Universal Credit by £17 a week, would actually cost more and achieve less.
But let’s not reduce this down to spreadsheets alone. Behind every number is a child going hungry, a parent in despair, and families forced into debt just to keep the lights on. Across Britain, we are seeing children living in what campaigners rightly describe as Dickensian levels of poverty.
It is utterly unacceptable in a country as wealthy as ours.
A growing consensus
This is not just the view of campaigners. From Gordon Brown to Neil Kinnock, senior figures across Labour have now demanded that the two-child cap be scrapped. A coalition of anti-poverty organisations – from Save the Children to the Trussell Trust – have said the same, united in one voice: this policy must go.
Even the Government’s own rhetoric – that “every child deserves the best start in life” – falls flat when it continues to uphold a cap that punishes children simply for having siblings.
And in Parliament, I have voted to scrap the two-child limit. I even lost the Labour whip over this issue, because I will not stand by while children in Bradford East and across the country are pushed into destitution.
Funding the change
The usual excuse is cost. But the reality is there are clear and fair alternatives.
Labour’s Chancellor Rachel Reeves is already exploring revenue streams — for example, raising online gambling taxes could alone generate over £3 billion, comfortably enough to end the cap. And many of us believe we must go further, with a modest wealth tax on the richest 0.1% that could raise £24 billion a year.
We can afford to do this. The question is whether we have the political will to make the right choice.
Time to act
This autumn, the Government will publish its long-delayed Child Poverty Strategy. That strategy will be meaningless if it fails to scrap the two-child cap.
We have a chance at Labour conference to pass a motion to scrap the two-child benefit cap.
The choice is simple. We know the facts. We know the alternatives. We know the moral case. No child in Bradford East, or anywhere in Britain, should be punished for having brothers or sisters. No child should go hungry, cold, or have their future stolen.
The choice before us is simple: keep this cruel policy and watch poverty deepen, or scrap the cap and change lives for good.
For me, the answer is clear. It’s time to scrap the cap now.
- Imran Hussain is the MP for Bradford East, you can follow him on Facebook and twitter.
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