SEVEN years after the creation of the two-child benefit cap, this government or the next must scrap it, the SNP will say.

Branded “the worst of the welfare reforms of the last 13 years” by the Poverty Alliance, the Tory cap means that no matter the assessed need, no-one could claim financial assistance for any more than two children, and exceptions are only permitted where a mother could demonstrate a child was the conceived through rape.

Seven years on, one in 10 children in the UK, around 1.5 million, are affected as some of the poorest families in the land lose as much as £3,200 per child per year.