Minister gives strongest sign yet Labour could end two-child benefit limit

Bridget Phillipson: ‘Seeking to change the social security system is not easy, and it costs a lot of money, and we’ve got to get this right.’ Photograph: Ben Whitley/PA

The Labour government’s “moral purpose” is for fewer children to grow up in poverty, the education secretary has said, in the strongest hint yet that ministers intend to end the two-child benefit limit.

Bridget Phillipson said to those charities that have been campaigning for an end to the restriction: “We hear them … We want to make this change happen, and it will be the moral mission of this Labour government to ensure that fewer children grow up in poverty.”