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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.
“Does Nigel Farage want to go around and say: ‘White? Yeah, you can have the money. Black? No, I’m sorry, it’s not for you.’ What sort of country does he think we are?
“If you’re the mum next door who works in the NHS, has lived here all her life, her kids lived here all their life, but she was born somewhere else – we’re saying that that family deserves to grow up in poverty whereas the one next door doesn’t? That’s not the sort of country I believe in.”
Keir Starmer will champion the lifting of the cap on a visit to Bedfordshire on Thursday, saying Reform and the Conservatives’ opposition to the change “exposes the deep division and decline” of their agendas.
“Nigel Farage seems intent on linking arms with the Conservatives in a cruel alliance to push kids who need help back into poverty. This child poverty pact is something that should worry us all. These aren’t numbers on a spreadsheet – these are children’s life chances at stake,” the prime minister will say.
Analysis by Labour on Farage’s proposal to only give additional benefits to households with two working parents born in the UK suggests the policy would help just 3,700 – less than 1% of those affected by the two-child limit.
In the same press conference on Wednesday, Farage again shifted his denial of allegations of racist and antisemitic bullying during his time at Dulwich college.
He previously said he did not recognise the events described by more than 30 people who have spoken to the Guardian, or that he would never deliberately abuse someone “in a hurtful or insulting way”. But on Wednesday Farage said: “Some of what is out there is just absolute nonsense made by people with very obvious, if you look, political motivation.”
Amid boos from Reform members directed at the ITV journalist who asked why he had not apologised to his accusers, Farage said: “I don’t apologise for things that are complete made-up fantasies.”
Reeves said there would now be a big battle to win over public opinion to back the measure that could lift 550,000 children out of poverty – and that Reform and the Conservatives would press to undo the change.
“I think we did it in the right way, but when we announced it this year, we’re not hanging around, it comes in in April,” she said, speaking after a reception for child poverty campaigners who urged her to be more vocal in defending the policy to win over sceptics.
“We’ve both managed to return stability but also deliver on our values of reducing child poverty and increasing social justice. It’s not good enough just to win the argument with the government and with the Labour party, we’ve got to make sure that no party ever feels that they can get away with reversing this policy. And that comes from public consent. And also, frankly, it comes from not electing the Tories or Reform.”
Reeves said Labour would not shy away from using the measure as a way to win back progressive voters angered by aspects of the government’s agenda.
“When people say, oh, there’s no difference, and what’s the point of voting Labour – there’s 550,000 kids at the end of this parliament [who] are going to be growing up in a house without mould, where the mum and the kids are going be able to afford to eat and not go to school or work hungry. If anyone thinks that that is not worth voting for then I don’t know what is, because this is everything.”
Farage, asked how he would vote on the bill to lift the cap, told a press conference his comments about supporting an end to the cap had been misinterpreted.
“I was trying to be pro-family, pro-children, pro-working people who find it very, very hard to pay for childcare. It’s a disincentive for them to have children and to go to work at the same time,” he said. “I think the way this government is doing it … looking at some of the stats, it’s going to start to benefit huge numbers of foreign-born people. And that goes back to this point.
“We have to prioritise British-born people, whether it’s for child benefit or whether it’s for social housing. And so I think when it comes, we will vote against it.”
