Hundreds of thousands of children are set to be lifted out of poverty, as the UK government has announced that it will end the limit restricting universal credit support to two children per family.
The announcement—part of the autumn budget that was leaked by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) ahead of a speech by the chancellor of the exchequer, Rachel Reeves—said that the two child benefit cap would be lifted from April 2026. Its removal would cost £2.3bn in 2026-27 and £3bn in 2029-30, said the OBR.
This comes after a year and a half of political infighting within the Labour Party over the cap and other welfare decisions, such as previously proposed disability cuts.1 Some 4.5 million children—nearly one in three (31%)—are estimated to be living in poverty in the UK.
In a speech at the …
