Overview

• Ministers and officials on the government’s child poverty taskforce are expected to advise scrapping the two-child limit, with findings due before the Budget.
• Lifting the cap is estimated to cost around £3 billion a year, and Treasury sources have signaled reluctance to commit the funds.
• More than 100 Labour MPs have urged Chancellor Rachel Reeves to fund repeal via a targeted levy on harmful online gambling, citing IPPR estimates of about £3.2 billion.
• Reeves says gambling taxation is under review and will be addressed in the Budget, while Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson and Pat McFadden say changes are on the table.
• The IFS reports that abolishing the cap would efficiently cut child poverty by roughly half a million, though it finds no measurable effect on five-year-olds’ school readiness to date.