Two-child benefit cap is cementing regional poverty, Starmer told

Almost half of all children in Birmingham, Tower Hamlets in London, Manchester, Sandwell, Stoke-on-Trent, Oldham, Wolverhampton and Walsall were growing up in poverty, the report said. Photograph: Russell Hart/Alamy

Keir Starmer has been warned that the two-child benefit cap has contributed to a widening gulf in regional poverty, leaving almost half of all children in some towns and cities living below the breadline.

With the prime minister under pressure to drop the policy, research from the Resolution Foundation showed a “very strong relationship” between local levels of child poverty and the share of families affected by the measure introduced by the previous Conservative government.