'Do what's right for UK's children': Urgent call to scrap two-child benefit cap projected onto parliament

If you were outside King’s Cross station or parliament at midnight, you might have spotted a bold stunt highlighting the scale of child poverty in the UK.

Save the Children projected images across the Houses of Parliament and King’s Cross – which is in Keir Starmer’s constituency – with key statistics calling on the prime minister to axe the two-child limit on benefits.

The policy traps hundreds of thousands of children in hardship by limiting families from getting extra universal credit or tax credits for their third or subsequent children.

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Around 1.6 million children are impacted by the two-child limit, a figure which Save the Children expects to rise for another consecutive year when updated statistics are published this Thursday (10 July).

An estimated 109 children fall into poverty each day because of the two-child limit on benefits.

Dan Paskins, executive director of policy, advocacy and campaigns at Save the Children UK, said: “Evidence shows that getting rid of the two-child limit policy is the only way of significantly reducing child poverty this parliament.

“If prime minister Keir Starmer and chancellor Rachel Reeves do not scrap it, then their ambition to reduce child poverty simply won’t be met.”

A record 4.3 million children are currently living in poverty in the UK, which is around one in three children.

In Starmer’s constituency of Holborn and St Pancras, nearly half (47%) of children are growing up in poverty.

Save the Children argues this could be the first Labour government to oversee a significant rise in hardship among children unless urgent action is taken.

Its child poverty strategy is expected to be published in autumn this year, and ministers have promised to be ambitious in tackling child poverty in the UK – but have yet to commit to axing the two-child limit on benefits.

Paskins added: “After a difficult week for the UK government, they should stand firm and do what is right for the UK’s children. Now is not the time to shy away from the bold investment needed to lift the maximum number of children out of poverty.

“The figures due this Thursday will only shine a light on how severe the child poverty crisis in in the UK. The UK government needs to take immediate action.”

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