Archbishop of Canterbury urges Starmer to ditch ‘cruel’ two-child benefit cap

Head of Church of England Justin Welby tells Observer that ending policy would lift thousands of UK children out of poverty

• The Observer view: Labour must tackle this scourge
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• Torsten Bell: We can easily end child poverty

Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, has issued an impassioned plea to the government and Keir Starmer’s Labour party to scrap the two-child limit on benefit payments to families, branding it as a cruel and immoral policy that plunges hundreds of thousands of children into poverty.

The intervention by the head of the Church of England will place particular pressure on Starmer to make a firm commitment to end the policy, which he has so far refused to do, as he tries to position Labour as being responsible with the public finances.