End of benefit cap rallies restive Labour MPs and 'buys Reeves time'

Labour MPs have publicly thrown their weight behind Rachel Reeves's budget after she abolished the two-child benefit cap and unveiled a slate of progressive measures, including a mansion tax.

- Eleni Courea Peter Walker

Backbenchers rallied round the prime minister and chancellor yesterday afternoon after Keir Starmer hailed the measures being announced as "a Labour budget with Labour values".

The decision to entirely scrap the two-child limit, which prevents parents from claiming child tax credit or universal credit for more than two children, was openly celebrated by dozens of Labour MPs who have been publicly and privately pushing for the measure. It will cost £3bn at the end of this parliament.

In a joint statement Helen Hayes and Debbie Abrahams, the chairs of the education and work and pensions select committees, said the move would "immediately lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty and stop even more being drawn into it".

Antonia Bance, Labour MP for Tipton and Wednesbury and former senior union official, said on Bluesky that she had "worked to end the two-child limit ever since the day I was elected" and that ministers had "acted to give every child the best start in life".