THE SNP has warned the Prime Minister not to punish children by clinging on to the two-child cap as Labour in Westminster scrambles to fill a budget black hole.

Sir Keir Starmer was banking on cutting £5 billion a year through cuts to universal credit and personal independence payments, which would have plunged between 350,000 and 450,000 into poverty, according to the government’s own estimates.

Concessions to halt a 130-strong backbench Labour rebellion last week could still send 150,000 into poverty but blow a hole in his Chancellor’s spending plans, prompting reports that the two-child cap — a target for scrapping under Labour — could remain.

The Scottish government has pledged to scrap the cap in time for next May’s Holyrood election, but SNP deputy leader at Westminster Pete Wishart has urged it be scrapped across the UK, a move which, according to House of Commons Library analysis, would lift 2.3 million families out of poverty: 96,000 of them in Scotland.

Mr Wishart said: “Keir Starmer must not punish children for his disastrous mistakes over the Labour Party’s cuts to disabled people. Scrapping the two-child benefit cap is the absolute bare minimum – and it should have been done on the Labour government’s first day in power.

“It’s pathetic that senior Labour Party figures now want to keep this punitive welfare cut just to show rebel MPs who’s in charge. Saving Keir Starmer embarrassment is not more important than tackling child poverty.”

A UK government spokesperson responded: “We are determined to bring down child poverty.

“We will publish an ambitious child poverty strategy later this year to ensure we deliver fully funded measures that tackle the structural and root causes of child poverty across the country.”