Why Labour's scrapping of abhorrent two-child benefits cap means so much
The two-child benefit cap generates real and lasting harms for the children it affects and their parents
The job of driving down child poverty is a big one, and no one policy can fulfil the Scottish and UK Government’s ambitions to eradicate it entirely. But today’s announcement on lifting the two-child limit is a massive step forward, and corrects a decade-long wrong.
This policy, which produces poverty by its very design, has no place in a compassionate country, and set the UK apart internationally in capping means-tested social security support at the first two children.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves made an impassioned case for why the two-child limit should be scrapped. She rightly reminded us only a privileged few can make decisions about how many children they can afford and that we never know what misfortunes might befall us.
Relationships break down, people get ill and die prematurely, jobs can be lost. Social security can and should be there to protect us financially during these difficult times. The two-child limit completely undermined that.
A failed policy
Scrapping it is bold and decisive policy making, and perhaps one of just a handful of announcements since Labour entered government worthy of the ‘change’ mantra they campaigned on. It’s rooted in robust, indisputable evidence, which makes abundantly clear how the policy fails both on its own terms but also in generating real and lasting harms for the children it affects and their parents.
I led the largest academic study of the two-child limit (and its sister policy, the benefit cap) which found that it didn’t reduce fertility among poorer households or act as an incentive to increase employment. In fact, 59 per cent of those affected by the two-child limit live in working households, a figure rarely heard amongst the negative rhetoric used in attempts to defend the policy.
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Scrapping the two-child limit is significant for the Scottish Government too, which had already committed to mitigating the policy from April 2026, the same date at which it will now be abolished across the UK.
Labour’s action here frees up the £150 million ear-marked by the SNP for this mitigation, which should now be redirected towards an uplift to the Scottish Child Payment. This devolved benefit is already making a real and positive difference to the everyday lives of children across Scotland, and has been the driver of recent falls in child poverty rates not seen elsewhere in the UK.
‘Constant financial worry’
We should all celebrate today’s announcement, and recognise the change it will bring. Change to families like Kim’s, a disabled parent of four boys who has been directly affected by the two-child limit.
She told me: “The removal of the two-child limit brings my family a deep sense of relief. Without the cap hanging over me, I finally feel less weighed down by constant financial worry and more able to make choices that genuinely reflect what each of my boys need. Most importantly, it gives me the chance to focus more on their happiness, their opportunities, and their future.”
By scrapping the two-child limit, the Chancellor has taken action to end a truly abhorrent policy. A good day for all of us who want to see less children in poverty.
Kim takes part in Changing Realities, a collaboration of over 200 people on low incomes, researchers and Child Poverty Action Group.
Ruth Patrick is professor in social and public policy at the University of Glasgow
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