The two-child benefit cap: “no estimate has been made”
For most of a year ministers said they could not commit to changing the two-child limit and had published no estimate of scrapping it. Then the Budget costed its removal — and the same minister pointed MPs to the figures.
from the first question to the answer
79 written questions · 41 MPs pressing · conceded at the Budget after a 16-month campaign
24 July 2024 → 26 November 2025
Will you scrap the two-child limit — and what would it cost?
The limit is abolished from April 2026 — with the cost the government had said it hadn’t produced.
The pressure
A low, steady campaign for over a year — then a surge as the Budget neared and the decision could no longer be deferred.
Bars (MP questions + Bluesky) are each scaled to their own peak — comparing when, not how much. The petition is public and far larger, so it’s the amber line behind — cumulative, on its own scale.
196 Bluesky posts from MPs — building steadily, then surging at the Budget that scrapped it
How it played out
A taskforce — and seven suspensions
The government launches a Child Poverty Taskforce to examine levers including the two-child limit, and suspends seven Labour MPs who voted to scrap the cap.
We cannot currently commit to ending the two-child limit. However, tackling child poverty… is at the heart of this Government’s missions. The Child Poverty Taskforce is exploring all available levers…
“Can’t commit” — while the taskforce is “exploring all available levers,” which include the very thing.
Read the full exchange →No estimates have been published. While we cannot currently commit to changing the two child policy…
No published estimate — of a policy under active, resourced review.
Read the full exchange →The cap is scrapped
The Autumn Budget abolishes the two-child limit in Universal Credit from April 2026; the OBR costs its removal at around £2.3bn rising to £3bn.
OBR Economic & Fiscal Outlook, Nov 2025 · Table 3.2The requested information is published in ‘Table 3.2: Costing of the removal of the two-child limit’ (page 66-67) and is available at EFOs - Office for Budget Responsibility.
Weeks after the Budget, the same minister points to the costing he had said wasn’t published.
Read the full exchange →What the silence cost
For sixteen months ministers said no estimate of removing the limit had been published, while the Child Poverty Taskforce was — by its own account — “exploring all available levers.”
Charities, committees and MPs argued the case for and against without the official costing, which arrived only once the decision was taken.
Was the silence justified?
Reticence before a decision is normal. The question is how much, for how long, and at what cost.
Removing the limit is expensive, and a government is entitled to wait for a fiscal event to commit; until then, “no decision taken” is a fair answer.
But the question was live from day one — the government suspended seven of its own MPs over it — and the “no estimate published” line held for sixteen months, only to resolve into a fully-costed Budget measure. The length of the wait, not the eventual decision, is the story.
Whether the limit should go is a values question on which people differ. This is only about how long its cost was kept off the table.
Ministers named: Sir Stephen Timms
Quotes are verbatim written answers in Beyond the Vote’s records of UK Parliament written questions. Tap any quote to read the full exchange.