DEMANDS SET OUT AHEAD OF THIS MONTH'S BUDGET

NORTHERN mayors have called on Rachel Reeves to abolish the two-child benefit cap and commit to vast railway line upgrades, including the restoration of a mothballed North East route.

- By DANIEL HOLLAND

Ahead of the Budget later this month, mayors including Kim McGuinness and Andy Burnham have today written to the Chancellor to demand “game-changing investment” in the North of England.

Under the banner of the ‘Great North’ partnership launched earlier this year, the leaders have asked for help to “unlock the North's full potential”.

They have added their names to the pleas for the two-child cap to be lifted in order to help combat child poverty, with the mayors saying its removal would lift more than 100,000 Northern children out of deprivation.

The mayors write: “Many Northern communities are disproportionately affected by the two-child benefit cap, with higher rates of child poverty.

“Its impact is most acute in areas of entrenched disadvantage. Reversing the cap would lift around 630,000 children out of poverty nationwide - with the North seeing the greatest impact.

“It is one of the most cost-effective and immediate levers to reduce poverty and unlock opportunity. We must act. The children of the North cannot wait.”