The two-child limit needs to be removed to tackle child poverty

Child poverty remains one of the most urgent issues facing our communities.

- Kate Osborne

Fourteen years of the Tory government has left millions of children across the country bearing the brunt of their failures, their cuts and their deliberate destruction of community safety nets have left our kids growing up in poverty.

Here in the Jarrow and Gateshead East constituency, around one in three children are affected - a shocking and appalling statistic that should shame any government.

This week the government released its latest data showing that here in the Jarrow and Gateshead East constituency, around one in three children are growing up in poverty.

The single most effective way we can alleviate child poverty is by removing the two-child limit on benefits.

Regular readers will know it is something I have long campaigned on, I have always opposed the two-child limit - it is a cruel and unjust policy that has pushed families deeper into hardship, and this month I joined more than 60 MPs who have signed Labour MP Kim Johnson's letter to the Prime Minister, calling on him to immediately scrap the two-child benefit cap.

The cap impacts around 70,000 babies, children and young people across the North East including 13.2% of children in our constituency.

Removing the cap will make such a difference for so many and I won't stop campaigning until it is lifted - families in our constituency cannot wait any longer.