Backbench MP Rachel Maskell added: “It is welcome to learn that the government’s plans could lift children out of poverty but, as academic research consistently shows, the biggest single intervention to reduce child poverty will be to remove the limit on the number of children to receive child benefit, and to end the benefit cap.
And Nadia Whittome added: “These findings come as little surprise, with child poverty researchers and campaigners long arguing that the two-child limit is the biggest driver of rising child poverty.
But the Resolution Foundation warned that, under current spending plans, child poverty could rise to 33 per cent by the end of the decade, equating to 4.6 million children living in poverty.
Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, who has sat as an independent MP since having the whip suspended by Labour in a rebellion over the two-child limit, told The Independent: “No Labour government in history has stood by and allowed child poverty to increase on its watch.
The prime minister has been urged to rethink the Tory-era benefit cap after the Resolution Foundation said his strategy to tackle child poverty will lack credibility if it remains in place.
