LONDON (Reuters) -Britain's Labour government is considering whether to abolish a two-child limit on welfare payments to parents as it reassesses several unpopular policies in a bid to reverse a slide
UK Government Weighs Abolishing Two-Child Benefit Payment Cap
LONDON (Reuters) -Britain's Labour government is considering whether to abolish a two-child limit on welfare payments to parents as it reassesses several unpopular policies in a bid to reverse a slide in its poll ratings after less than a year in power.
Labour suffered a bruising set of local election results earlier this month, losing ground to Nigel Farage's right-wing Reform UK party, which also now leads in national opinion polls.
Last week Prime Minister Keir Starmer signalled he was open to reversing a cut in winter fuel payments to the elderly, and the government is now considering whether to scrap the two-child benefit cap, which think-tanks and critics say fuels poverty.
Asked if the government would scrap the cap, which was introduced by the Conservative government in 2017, education minister Bridget Phillipson said: "It's on the table."
"No measures are off the table," she told Times Radio, adding that a child poverty taskforce was looking at "lots of ways" to tackle the issue.
"But of course we can't ignore the impact of social security changes... that were introduced by the Conservatives, that a Labour government would not have introduced in the first place. But it's tough, it's challenging."
Labour cut winter fuel payments and refused to scrap the two-child benefit cap after being elected in July, arguing the spending reductions were necessary to fix a hole in government finances left by the previous Conservative administration.
The party even suspended seven lawmakers for six months for voting to scrap the two-child benefit cap - the position the government is now considering adopting.
Veteran lawmaker John McDonnell said the move would lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty yet he had been "attacked by many of the ministers now backing" the measure after last year's vote resulted in Labour suspending him.
"Stop delaying and just do it," he said.
(Reporting by Alistair Smout; Editing by Sachin Ravikumar)
