REEVES TO END THE 2 CHILD CAP BENEFIT – Chancellor also expected to drag 9m people into higher tax rates by freezing thresholds
Rachel Reeves will unveil £15bn of extra benefits spending in this week’s Budget, funded by a tax raid on the middle classes.
The Chancellor will end the two-child benefit cap in its entirety and increase benefit payments by nearly 4 per cent, while financing about-turns on winter fuel cuts and welfare reform.
She will also drag an estimated nine million people into paying higher rates of income tax by freezing thresholds in a move critics argue breaks Labour’s election manifesto pledges.
The annual cost of the four policies comes to £15bn, which, added to changes in Ms Reeves’s 2024 Budget, amounts to an extra £18bn to the benefits bill since Labour took power last year, according to Telegraph analysis.
The plans have fuelled warnings that the Treasury is “vulnerable” to a market backlash unless the country’s public spending, which is being pushed up by welfare bills, is controlled.
But Sir Keir Starmer is under pressure to keep Labour MPs onside amid speculation about plots against his leadership, with fewer than one in five voters supporting his party in the polls.
