Article informationauthor, Paul Seddonrole, Political reporter
Updated 3 hours ago
Amid pressure from Labour MPs to scrap the policy, the Chancellor said he would not make an “unfunded” promise to remove the cap on second child allowance.
Some MPs are calling on the government to reverse the cap, which was introduced under the Conservative government in 2017.
But Rachel Reeves told the BBC she could not make that promise without revealing “where the money would come from” to spend £3 billion a year.
She added that other policies such as introducing breakfast clubs in every primary school in England showed Labour’s passion for tackling child poverty.
Around 1.6 million children live in households affected by the cap, which will mean almost all parents will be unable to claim Universal Credit or Child Tax Credit for a third child.
Labour’s landslide election victory has led to renewed calls from anti-poverty charities to abolish the system, with calls for change backed by Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham.
Some members of the party are hoping to use Monday’s debate in Parliament on the King’s Speech to put pressure on the new government on the issue.
Given the new government’s overwhelming majority of 180 MPs, there is no chance that an amendment signed by just a dozen or so MPs will pass.
But the House rebellion is likely to be an early test for the new administration ahead of its first budget, due in the fall.
Labour has made a cautious approach to public spending a central part of its election campaign and has an imposed rule that day-to-day spending plans must be in line with tax revenue forecasts.
Asked by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg if he supported calls for reform, Mr Reeves replied: “The reforms will cost more than £3 billion a year.”
“During the election we were very clear that we were not going to commit to spending without being able to say where the money was going to come from.
“We can’t make any promises if we can’t tell you where the funding is coming from. Same goes for the two-child limit and other things.”
She pointed to election policies such as the introduction of new rights for workers, breakfast clubs in primary schools and the creation of new nurseries as evidence that Labour remains committed to reducing child poverty.
“Previous Labour governments have lifted children out of poverty, it’s in our DNA. We will do that, but we’re not going to make promises without funding them.”
“Social Cleansing”
But Zara Sultana, one of the Labour MPs arguing for the changes, said reversing the changes was “not a radical demand”.
He also spoke to Laura Kuenssberg, adding that doing so was “a matter of political will” and accused the Prime Minister of “not looking in the right places”.
She suggested higher wealth taxes and capital gains taxes on the sale of assets could be used to fund the policy.
In a sign of the depth of feeling within the party on the issue, fellow councillor Rosie Duffield said the cap amounted to “social cleansing”.
Writing in the Sunday Times, she added that the “evil” policy was “an attack on a woman’s right to choose how many children she has”.
The charity Save the Children estimates that removing the cap could lift half a million children out of relative poverty.
The group argues that unless the cap is lifted in the autumn budget, the government’s anti-poverty plans will be “unreliable”.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank estimates that scrapping it could ultimately cost the government £3.4 billion a year, roughly 3% of the total working-age benefits budget.
