Chancellor makes right choice on two-child limit at Budget, but families left with mountain still to climb
JRF responds to Chancellor Rachel Reeves' Autumn Budget 2025, which included the scrapping of the two-child limit in Universal Credit.
Alfie Stirling, Director of Insight and Policy at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said:
“With families facing the worst parliament on record for living standards, the Chancellor needed to act on the cost of living at this Budget. The true test of this Budget, and ultimately this Government, will be whether families who have been overlooked in recent years start to feel genuinely better off. This Budget starts to give families some relief, but it still leaves them with a mountain to climb.
“The Chancellor made a number of bold and important interventions: lowering energy bills, holding down transport costs and increasing the minimum wage will help families with life’s day to day costs. Scrapping the two-child limit in Universal Credit is a crucial and effective step towards meeting the Government’s manifesto commitment to reduce child poverty and give more children the best start in life. Delivering the biggest fall in child poverty over the course of a parliament wouldn’t be possible without it.
“But there is more to do. Housing costs and bills are still too high, our safety nets are too frail, and the cost to workers of caring for their loved ones is too great. Pushing harder in all these areas is now critical. It will mean going further to close inequalities in our tax system that cost revenue and make it unfair. The Government’s and families’ prospects depend on the Chancellor's ability to deliver the change that’s urgently needed.”
Notes to Editors
- [1] Separate JRF research ahead of the Budget showed that the nation is on course for a decade of decline in families’ disposable incomes by the end of the parliament (September 2029). The analysis will be updated this afternoon to reflect changes made in the Budget.
- [2] At the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, we work to speed up and support the transition to a future free from poverty, in which people and planet can flourish.
- [3] Contact us at pressoffice@jrf.org.uk or call 01904 615 958