Rachel Reeves signals plan to remove two-child benefit cap in budget

Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, told BBC Radio 5 Live: ‘I don’t think that it’s right that a child is penalised because they are in a bigger family.’ Photograph: Justin Tallis/PA

Rachel Reeves is planning to remove the two-child benefit cap in full in the November budget, in a move that could cost more than £3bn but lift 350,000 children out of poverty.

The chancellor is understood to be preparing to reverse the Conservative measure entirely, having originally looked at ways to taper it either for very large families or richer ones.