Exclusive: Chancellor says Reform leader wants to keep children in poverty based on skin colour after U-turn
Rachel Reeves has said she was angered by Nigel Farage’s suggestion that only British-born families should have the two-child benefit cap lifted, saying the Reform UK leader would keep children in poverty based on their skin colour.
The chancellor, who will introduce legislation to lift the cap on Thursday, said it had been a burden for her not to be able to do so sooner, but it had been vital to do it at a moment of market stability.
Farage told a press conference on Wednesday that his party would vote against the scrapping of the two-child limit, having previously suggested he could back the change. He said he was concerned it would “benefit huge numbers of foreign-born people”.
Reeves said those comments were akin to saying some families deserved to have children in poverty. “I don’t really care what colour a kid’s skin is – some deserve to be in poverty and some don’t? That makes me pretty angry,” she said.
