“Families can’t wait any longer, they’ve waited for the UK government and there’s been no action.”
The Scottish government has announced it will end the controversial two-child benefit cap, increasing pressure on Labour to commit to scrapping the policy across the UK.
Introduced by the Conservative government in 2017, the UK-wide cap restricts families from claiming universal credit or child tax credit for more than two children, except in certain circumstances. The policy has been widely criticised for pushing families into poverty, with each additional child costing affected households over £3,000 annually in lost support.
Under the new plans, applications for support in Scotland will open on March 2, 2026, the SNP confirmed this week.
Shirley-Anne Somerville, social justice secretary for the Scottish government, said the move would help keep 20,000 children out of relative poverty, at an estimated cost of between £140m and £150m in the first year. Somerville said that it would be an “investment” in children and families struggling with the cost of living.
“Families can’t wait any longer, they’ve waited for the UK government and there’s been no action.
“That’s exactly why the Scottish government is stepping in,” she said.
The Scottish government is already spending £1.5bn each year to ensure welfare north of the border is more generous than in the rest of the UK. According to Somerville, Scotland has delivered “unparalleled financial support” through its Scottish child payment, which is an additional payment introduced in 2021 to support low-income families.
It has also introduced funding to help councils remove school meal debt from families who have struggled to pay for their children’s lunches
Following Scotland’s announcement, calls have been ramped up for the UK government to do the same and axe the cap.
Lynn Perry, chief executive of Barnardo’s, said: “We welcome the Scottish government’s intention to mitigate the two-child limit on benefits by 2026. Barnardo’s has long campaigned for this and strongly urges the UK government to follow suit and end the policy nationwide.
“The UK government has rightly committed to creating opportunities for what should be the healthiest ever generation of children, but while we welcome recent steps like the extension of free school meals to children whose families receive universal credit, this will require much more action to increase families’ incomes and provide a network of family centres in every community. The autumn budget will have some heavy lifting to do.”
A UK government spokesperson told the BBC: “We are working closely with and supporting the Scottish government to tackle child poverty in Scotland through the largest real terms settlement in the history of devolution.
“The government is determined to bring down child poverty.
“We’ve already uprated benefits, increased the national minimum wage and are supporting 700,000 of the poorest families by introducing a Fair Repayment Rate on Universal Credit deductions.”
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