By CLAIRE ELLICOTT WHITEHALL EDITOR Published: 00:00 BST, 30 September 2025 | Updated: 00:34 BST, 30 September 2025
Gambling taxes look likely to rise in the clearest indication yet that Rachel Reeves could scrap the two-child benefit limit.The Chancellor told ITV News that she would ‘make sure’ betting firms paid more ahead of the Budget.It comes after Gordon Brown, the former prime minister, urged her to increase the levy to fund removing the limit on benefits for those with more than two children.‘I do think there’s a case for gambling firms paying more,’ she told ITV yesterday.‘They make an important contribution to the economy but they should pay their fair share of taxes and we’ll make sure that that happens.’There has been expectation that Labour will lift the cap at conference to please restive backbenchers as the Government lurches from crisis to crisis.Sir Keir Starmer and many of his Cabinet ministers have said that they would like to lift the cap.Ms Reeves’s comments on the eve of Sir Keir Starmer’s conference speech are the clearest indication yet that the Government could do so. Gambling taxes look likely to rise in the clearest indication yet that Rachel Reeves could scrap the two-child benefit limitEnding the limit is also expected to be a major recommendation in a review into child poverty in the UK which is due to report before the budget.The cap was introduced by the Conservatives in 2017 and allows families to claim universal credit and tax credits for up to two children.Last week, more than 100 Labour MPs wrote to Ms Reeves to demand she scraps it.The group urged her to back a call from Mr Brown for the Government to hike gambling taxes to pay for the move.They said there was a ‘compelling’ case to target the betting industry to abolish the cap at an estimated cost of £3billion a year.The letter - signed by nearly half of Labour’s 235 backbenchers - increased the pressure on the Government.The Institute for Public Policy Research said last month that lifting taxes on high stakes online gambling could raise the £3.2billion needed to end a cap on child benefits.Asked yesterday whether she could afford to lift the cap, Ms Reeves declined to provide a yes or no answer, telling Bloomberg: ‘No one needs to tell me how important child poverty is. Keir Starmer (pictured on a visit with Ms Reeves in Liverpool) and many of his Cabinet ministers have said that they would like to lift the cap‘I came into the Labour Party because I wanted children from all backgrounds to have a good start in life.‘Would I like to do more? Yes, but of course, we have always got to explain how policies will be paid for.’Last week, Labour restored the party whip to two MPs after they lost it for rebelling over the two-child benefit cap.TUC general secretary Paul Nowak called for a gambling tax: ‘At the Budget the Government should be asking those with the broadest shoulders, like banks and gambling companies, to pay their fair share.‘This is not only the right thing to do, it’s popular right across the political spectrum, including with Reform-leaning voters.’
