Former prime minister Gordon Brown speaks at a child poverty event, to mark the 60th anniversary of the Child Poverty Action Group (Cpag), at Somerset House, in central London, November 6, 2025FORMER prime minister Gordon Brown piled pressure on Chancellor Rachel Reeves today to tackle the “shameful epidemic” of child poverty.
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Marking the 60th anniversary of the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), he planned to say: “This is urgently needed to take half a million children out of poverty from April next year and to meaningfully tackle Britain’s shameful epidemic of child poverty.”
The Chancellor is expected to make changes to the two-child benefit limit in her Budget.
Reforms to gambling levies could generate the £3.2 billion needed to scrap both the two-child limit and benefit cap, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research.
Official estimates say 4.45 million children were in relative low income households, after housing costs, in the year to March 2024 – the highest number since comparable records for Britain began in 2002/03.
CPAG chief executive Alison Garnham said: “Now more than ever with child poverty at a record high, we need decisive action from government and the first step must be full abolition of the two-child limit.
“Half-measures and compromises will not shift the dial. The policy must be removed in its entirety or a generation of children will grow up cut off from opportunity.”
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