Families with eight kids or more raking in extra £21,800 a YEAR after two child benefit cap axed

THOUSANDS of families with eight or more children get an extra £21,800 a year after Labour axed the two-child benefit cap. Ex-PM Sir Keir Starmer caved in to backbenchers when his Government was on the rocks and cut the policy, at a cost of some £3billion per year. Thousands of families with eight or more children get an extra £21,800 a year after Labour axed the two-child benefit cap Universal Credit figures show 2,200 families with eight children or more now receive £21,883 extra annually. This amounts to around £29,178 in total — the starting salary of a police constable in Essex or Kent after tax. Sign up for the Money newsletter Thank you! They are among the 17,290 families with six children or more receiving at least an extra £14,589 per year. When that is added to their benefits they get for their first two kids, it comes to £21,883. The two-child cap was introduced by the Tories and stopped parents claiming payments worth about £300 a month for more than two kids. Helen Whately, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, said: “Hard-working parents don’t get a pay rise from their employer when they have another child, but Labour has done just that for people on benefits.” Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has vowed to reinstate the cap to fund defence. In today’s Sun on Sunday, she writes: “We believe those on benefits should have to make the same choices about having children as those who aren’t.” Most read in Money A government source said large families are less than one per cent of all Universal Credit households with children. The Department for Work and Pensions said: “Almost 60 per cent of households benefitting from the two-child limit removal have at least one parent in work. “This change gives hard-working families extra breathing room, lifting 450,000 children out of poverty.” Comment now