The number of children affected by the UK’s contentious two-child limit on benefits has increased by 8.5 percent over the past year, according to official data, heightening pressure on the new Labour government to reconsider the policy.

This policy, which restricts child welfare payments to the first two children in most families, impacted a record 1.6 million children in the year to April 2024, up from 1.5 million, as reported by HM Revenue & Customs and the Department for Work and Pensions.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has yet to commit to ending the policy, despite significant pressure from within his party, including from former prime minister Gordon Brown. Critics argue that the policy is a primary driver of the UK’s rising child poverty rates.

Introduced by the Conservative government in April 2017, the policy aimed to ensure that families living on benefits faced the “same financial choices” as working families. However, there is little evidence to suggest that it has reduced the number of parents on benefits having three or more children.

Senior figures from children’s charities and the Church of England have called for the policy to be scrapped following the publication of the new figures.

“We know that the two-child limit is a failing policy that actively pushes families into poverty,” said Joseph Howes, chair of the End Child Poverty UK umbrella group. He added that scrapping the policy would significantly reduce child poverty overnight.

The Rt Revd Martyn Snow, Lord Bishop of Leicester, stated, “Abolishing this unfair policy is essential if we are to turn the tide on poverty and ensure that every child is supported to flourish in all areas of life.”

Labour’s manifesto includes a commitment to review the UK’s universal credit welfare system, but it has not guaranteed the abolition of the policy, which deputy prime minister Angela Rayner previously described as “obscene and inhumane” in 2020.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank, removing the two-child cap would cost £3.4 billion a year.

Labour has announced plans to fund free breakfast clubs for all primary school pupils at a cost of £315 million over the parliamentary term.

According to government statistics, about 25 percent of children were living below the poverty line in 2022-23, up from 23.8 percent the previous year. This marks the largest annual increase since records began in 1994-95. The poverty line is defined as 60 percent of the average inflation-adjusted income in 2010-11.

The number of families affected by the two-child benefit cap, which applies to children born after April 2017, will continue to rise throughout this parliamentary term as more children are born into households with three or more children.

The Resolution Foundation think-tank projects that by 2035, 750,000 families will be affected, as all children in families with three or more children will be subject to the policy.

Torsten Bell, former director of the Resolution Foundation and newly elected Labour MP, described the policy as “immoral” in an article for The Guardian in April. He argued that it came close to creating “a poverty guarantee.”

By the end of the parliamentary term in 2029, it is projected that more than half of the children in large families will be living in relative poverty. This is defined as living on 60 percent of the UK’s median household income. This proportion will be higher than it was in 1997 when Tony Blair’s Labour government came into power with a landslide victory.

Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall said, “Too many children are growing up in poverty, and this is a stain on our society.

“We will work to give every child the best start in life by delivering our manifesto commitment to implement an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty.

“I will hold critical meetings with charities and experts next week to get this urgent work under way.”