26/11/2025, London
In response to today’s Autumn Budget, Jabeer Butt OBE, writes:
“The Government’s decision to scrap the two-child benefit cap in full from April 2026 is a welcome and long-overdue. The impact of this policy has been measurable, harmful and profoundly unequal. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that the change will reduce the number of children living in poverty by 450,000 by 2029/30 – a clear indication of the disadvantage the cap created.
We have long known which communities were most impacted. Research published by LSE’s Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion in July 2025 demonstrated that the two-child limit and benefit cap disproportionately affected children from some ethnic minority groups, contributing to widening ethnic disparities in child poverty rates.
The data shows the real-world consequences. Between 2020/21 and 2022/23, 56% of Bangladeshi households were in poverty, approximately 48% of Pakistani households, and 40% of Black British households. For children, the picture is more severe: 67% of children from Bangladeshi households, 58% of children from Pakistani households, 47% of Asian British children and 45% of Black British children are growing up in poverty.
Crucially, the policy was misaligned with its own stated aims. Although presented as an incentive to work, 59% of families affected by the two-child limit had at least one parent in employment.
As such, as much as the abolition of the two-child benefit cap is welcome, it cannot be seen as a generous gesture. It is a long-overdue, evidence-based correction to a policy that placed a disproportionate fiscal burden on minoritised ethnic communities in Britain. Its end must mark the beginning of a sustained commitment to tackling the systematic racial inequalities this policy came to symbolise.”
For media enquiries, contact: Lauren Golding, comms@racefound.org.uk
