MINISTERS were urged to go further to tackle child poverty as MPs voted on lifting the two-child benefit cap today.

Labour has faced calls since they came to power in summer 2024 to scrap the Tory policy that restricts child tax credit and universal credit to the first two children in most households.

Seven Labour MPs were suspended by the party after a backing an SNP motion to scrap the welfare measure in a vote in Parliament that year.

The government had at the time cited spending controls as a reason for not being able to ditch the policy immediately, indicating there would be no change without economic growth.

But following repeated calls from charities, campaigners and many of the party’s own MPs, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced in the autumn Budget last year that the government would move to scrap the policy from April.

Addressing the Commons for the second reading of the Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill today, Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said that the policy used children as pawns and was “all about the politics of dividing lines” between the “deserving and undeserving poor.”

But Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside Kim Johnson said that she feared the Bill to remove the cap would never have happened without the campaigning of the End Child Poverty Coalition (ECPC) and National Education Union (NEU).

She said: “It’s a shame that it has taken so long to reverse this draconian cap that was driving hundreds of families into poverty every single month.

“Children’s charities and organisations, the children’s commissioner and politicians of every background were united in calling for it, as their number one priority for reversing trends in child poverty.”

Paying tribute to the ECPC and the NEU, she said: “Without their incredible work to make it impossible for this government to ignore the necessity to lift the two child cap I fear it may never have happened.

“It follows that we must go further to alleviate child poverty and row back on policies such as no recourse to public funds.”

SNP MP Kirsty Blackman said that Labour “are being a bit smug about the position we are in” as she thanked the seven MPs who voted for its call to end the cap.