Reeves criticises Farage for benefit cap 'division'

Rachel Reeves said yesterday she was angered by Nigel Farage's suggestion that only British-born families should have the two-child benefit cap lifted and added that the Reform UK leader would keep children in poverty based on their skin colour.

- Jessica Elgot

The chancellor, who will introduce legislation to lift the cap today, said it had been a burden for her not to be able to do so sooner, but added that it was vital to do it at a moment of market stability.

Farage told a press conference yesterday his party would vote against the scrapping of the two-child limit having previously suggested he could back the change. He said he was concerned it would "benefit huge numbers of foreign-born people".

Reeves said those comments were akin to saying some families deserved to have children in poverty.

"I don't really care what colour a kid's skin is - some deserve to be in poverty and some don't? That makes me pretty angry," she said. "Does Nigel Farage want to go around and say - 'white? Yeah you can have the money.

Black? No I’m sorry it’s not for you’. What sort of country does he think we are?“If you’re the mum next door who works in the NHS, has lived here all her life, her kids lived here all their life, but she was born somewhere else - we're saying that family deserves to grow up in poverty whereas the one next door doesn’t? That’s not the sort of country I believe in.”