Offering fruit and milk vouchers to families, reforming the two-child benefit cap and ramping up parental advice services are under consideration to tackle child poverty in Britain.
The long-awaited child poverty strategy, due to be published this autumn, has been used by No 10 as a carrot to Labour MPs growing impatient with the government’s approach to lifting struggling families out of deprivation.
Helping impoverished children is one of Sir Keir Starmer’s key pledges and a cross-department ministerial group was formed to come up with a plan to turn the tide on the number of children growing up poor.
The strategy had been due in Spring 2025 but was shelved amid the almighty row over disability and sickness benefit cuts.
At the time, government sources said the plan would be linked to the Budget as any new measures would require funding. This suggested a sweetener was on the cards for MPs who had been urging Chancellor Rachel Reeves to scrap the two child benefit limit.
In recent weeks and months, No 10 has repeatedly signalled that the limit – which stops parents from claiming welfare for more than two children – will be changed.
Scrap or reform two child cap
Sources told The i Paper that the Chancellor has not yet decided whether the cap will be scrapped entirely – at a cost of around £3.5bn – or softened so some families can claim more support.
One source said that the Treasury was still examinining policies such as a taper, or lifting the cap for working parents only. “It’s not locked in, I think she genuinely hasn’t decided what to do with it,” they said.
Reeves is focused on the final outcome – the number of children better off at the end of her term compared to when she entered No11 – rather than political point-scoring, insiders claim.
The child poverty strategy is closely tied to Rachel Reeves’s autumn budgetPoverty affects nearly a third of children in the UK and Reeves wants to ensure her Budget reflects the level of ambition she has when it comes to the challenge of tackling it.
Government officials are keen to point out that the child poverty strategy will not focus on welfare alone.
Expanding breakfast clubs and free school meals, boosting crisis support for poorer families outside of term time, a cap on school uniform costs and investment in holiday programmes have already been announced.
Such measures have come alongside increases to the national minimum wage and new repayment rules for those in debt and on universal credit, also already set out.
Vouchers for fruit, vegetables and milk
The i Paper understands the government is also looking at the option of using vouchers for free fruit and vegetables, or milk, to help kids in deprivation.
Ministers are considering the expansion of Healthy Start vouchers, which are currently available to benefit claimants with kids under four-years-old or pregnant women.
Cards pre-loaded with money – between £4.25 and £8.50 per week, can be used in some UK shops to buy milk, fruit and vegetables, pulses, baby formula and vitamins.
Available in England, Wales and Northern Ireland – with a separate Best Start Foods policy in place in Scotland – 366,309 people were enrolled in the scheme in 2024 out of a total of 587,096 who were eligible, according to House of Commons library research.
The Local Government Association (LGA) has previously called on the Government to extend the scheme to children up to the age of five and increase awareness for those who are eligible but not currently using the support.
Advice hubs for parents
The government is also facing calls to put more money and resources into its recently launched Best Start early years programme, which was set up to provide families with local hubs where they can access a range of services.
Its aim is to supply in-person support, extra state-funded childcare, plus events, classes and trusted online advice for parents.
Best Start, inspired by the Blair government’s flagship Sure Start programme, was unveiled with a £500m injection of cash earlier this year
Officials are now examining how it can be expanded, such as providing tailored support for new fathers, although further details are unclear.
Ministers could also focus on expanding digital services for parents. In Australia, one-to-one or group support, and self-led learning, has been made available through phone apps and online.
A Deloitte study of this programme, known as Triple P, suggests the approach is a cost effective way of supporting families as it is easy to scale up and reduces pressure on in-person services. UK examples of the programme, such as Triple P for Baby, found that for every £1 spent on the service in Sandwell, West Midlands, £2.44 was saved.
Failure to scrap two child cap could spark MP mutiny
Even with a holistic approach to tackling child poverty, the Conservative-era two child benefit cap has become a political hot potato for this government.
Starmer attended a meeting of backbench Labour MPs last Monday, where colleagues demanded the Budget scraps the benefit limit, if the government is serious about tackling child poverty.
One Labour MP told The i Paper they believed the two child limit will only be lifted for families where the parents are in work.
But another party insider said there is still expectation among MPs that the cap will be scrapped entirely, warning that anything short of this could fuel a mutiny among the parliamentary Labour Party (PLP).
In the Treasury, there is scepticism around whether Labour MPs are truly reflecting the views of the majority of their constituents – given polling shows the two child limit is more popular among the general public than the PLP.
And, with Reeves rolling the pitch for expected income tax rises, the government could find itself in a difficult political position where it is having to justify hiking taxes on those who are in work in order to pay for more generous benefits for those who rely on welfare.
One Labour source, a critic of Starmer’s leadership, said this juxtaposition would be hard to justify to voters without a convincing narrative. “This is what happens when instead of making a moral argument you are forced into political decisions,” they added.
A new deprivation index published last month, which looked at living conditions across neighbourhoods, found that in 2025, 280 neighbourhoods had 90 per cent of children living in deprivation. In 73 neighbourhoods, at least 99 per cent of children live in households classed as deprived.
When the figures were last published in 2019, no neighbourhood – defined as a small area with an average population of 1,500 – had more than 90 per cent of children living in deprivation.
Guys & St Thomas’ Foundation analysis of the figures, shared with The i Paper, found more than a third of children (36.6 per cent) in England are living in income-deprived households. This is more than double the corresponding figure from 2019 (16.9 per cent).
Laurie Lee, CEO at Guy’s & St Thomas’ Foundation pointed to research from the Resolution Foundation think tank, which said any partial lifting of the cap – such as raising the limit to three children or lifting the cap only for people in work – would still leave the proportion of children in poverty higher at the end of this parliament than now.
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“These stark figures lay bare the challenge for the government. If it is to truly achieve its aim of fixing the foundations of our health service and preventing ill-health, it needs to be laser focused on tackling poverty,” he said.
A Government spokesperson said: “Every child, no matter their background, deserves the best start in life.
“That’s why our Child Poverty Taskforce will publish an ambitious strategy to tackle the structural and root causes of child poverty.
“We are investing £500million in children’s development through the rollout of Best Start Family Hubs, extending free school meals and ensuring the poorest don’t go hungry in the holidays through a new £1billion crisis support package.”
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