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155,000 more Muslim kids affected by two-child benefit cap than thought

Labour MPs and party’s Muslim network add to pressure on ministers to axe controversial policy in light of Hyphen’s findings

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A young mother, who is a recent immigrant, plays with her daughter on the playground of the Kingsmead Estate in Homerton, in the eastern part of Hackney. The estate has 980 flats and houses more than 3,000 people. Built in 1939, it has developed a reputation as a sink estate with a variety of social problems, gangs, vandalism, and crime. In recent years there have been initiatives to regenerate the estate and establish a more coherent sense of community. With its close proximity to the site of the 2012 Olympic Games more resources have become available, however, there are still substantial difficulties. Many residents are recent immigrants or asylum seekers and poverty remains a huge challenge. There are 42 different languages spoken by children at the local Kingsmead Primary School, where 95% of the pupils are from an ethnic minority.
Muslim children are more likely to be affected by the two-child benefit cap than non-Muslim children. Photograph by Gideon Mendel/In Pictures/Corbis/Getty Images

Data obtained exclusively by Hyphen has revealed that 155,000 more Muslim children are affected by the “cruel and immoral” two-child benefit cap than was previously thought.

Labour MPs and the party’s Muslim network have heaped pressure on ministers to axe the controversial policy in light of our findings.

Hyphen commissioned the Office for National Statistics to crunch data about the policy’s impact on different faith groups. We found that 744,863 Muslim children were living in families with three or more dependent kids at the time of the 2021 census — up 26% from 589,235 in 2011, the figure quoted by the Muslim Council of Britain in evidence to parliament six years ago.

It means 55% of Muslim children were living in families with three or more kids, nearly double the 29% average for the overall population — and a higher proportion than all other religious groups. It means Muslim kids are disproportionately likely to be affected by the policy.

A number of Muslim MPs are urging ministers to ditch the cap, which was conceived under the coalition government and prevents low-income families from claiming universal credit or child tax credit for their third or subsequent children if they were born after April 2017.

Apsana Begum, the MP for Poplar and Limehouse, was one of seven Labour MPs who had the whip suspended in July 2024 after voting for an SNP amendment calling for the cap to be dropped. Today, she is the only one still to be readmitted into the party. 

She told Hyphen the policy “disproportionately pushes Muslim families deeper into poverty” and that ditching it could help Labour win over Muslim working-class and ethnic minority communities who feel their votes have been “taken for granted” by the government.

Naz Shah, vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims, added: “Lifting the cap means lifting children out of poverty. Unless we can find other effective mechanisms to achieve this, the most sensible measure is to remove the two-child benefit cap.”

Ali Milani, national chair of the Labour Muslim Network, called the policy “cruel and immoral” and said it “should have been scrapped long ago”. “We join fellow Labour MPs, councillors and campaign groups across the UK in calling [on] the government to abolish the cap,” he said.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson last week said the government was “considering” ditching the policy, the same day that Nigel Farage’s Reform UK attempted to outflank Labour by pledging to axe it. Chancellor Rachel Reeves will deliver her first multi-year spending review settlement on 11 June, when a change of course could be announced.

Government statistics report 1.6m, or one in nine, children are affected by the policy. The Resolution Foundation living standards thinktank estimates that abolishing both it and the benefit cap would take an estimated 500,000 children out of poverty in 2029-30.

Begum told Hyphen the policy punished children “simply for being born”. “When my constituents re-elected me,” she said, “they did so in the hope that Labour would bring real change after 14 years of austerity. They did not vote for more of the same, and so change is what the government must now deliver, and scrapping this unfair policy is a vital first step.”

She demanded the policy be “scrapped altogether, not extended to three or four children”.

Mohammed Kozbar, trustee and general secretary of Finsbury Park Mosque, said “too many Muslim families” were struggling because of the policy in his own neighbourhood in north London.

“It’s disproportionately harming minority communities as well as exacerbating child poverty,” he added.

Junaid Ali, the coordinator of Hope 4 Humanity in east London, a one-stop shop providing everything from children’s holiday clubs to food banks and debt advice, said the cap meant many lower-income parents were “struggling to financially support the rest of their children”, with youngsters often going without “nutritionally healthy meals on the plate” as a result. 

In a further broadside, Begum also claimed she had “seen little meaningful engagement with the Muslim community on the impact of this policy or on child poverty more broadly”. 

“This lack of engagement is especially troubling in the context of rising anti-immigration rhetoric and far-right targeting of Muslims and minorities,” she added.

“Scrapping the two-child limit will go a long way in restoring trust among those who feel alienated by Labour’s direction. It would certainly send a message of hope to people across our country who have borne the brunt of austerity and are among the most vulnerable communities in society.”

The DWP and Labour party have been approached for comment.

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