Welfare U-turn makes spending decisions harder, minister says

Spending decisions have been made “harder” by the government’s U-turn on welfare changes, the education secretary has said, as she did not commit to scrapping the two-child benefit cap.

Bridget Phillipson told BBC One’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme that ministers were “looking at every lever” to lift children out of poverty.

But she said removing the cap would “come at a cost” and insisted the government was supporting families with the cost of living in other ways.

It comes after a rebellion of Labour MPs forced the government to significantly water down a package of welfare reforms that would have saved £5bn a year by 2030.

The climbdown means the savings will now be delayed or lost entirely, which puts pressure on Chancellor Rachel Reeves ahead of the autumn Budget.

Before its retreat on benefits, the Labour government was considering lifting the two-child benefit cap, a policy that restricts means-tested benefits to a maximum of two children per family for those born after April 2017.

When asked if the chances of getting rid of the cap had diminished, Phillipson said: “The decisions that have been taken in the last week do make decisions, future decisions harder.

“But all of that said, we will look at this collectively in terms of all of the ways that we can lift children out of poverty.”