Scrapping Two-Child Benefit Cap Unaffordable Due to High Borrowing: Minister

The government cannot afford to abolish the two-child limit for Child Tax Credit because of unexpected higher borrowing, a Treasury minister has said. Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones said in the first four months of this financial year, government borrowing to pay current public expenses was already £4.7 billion more than forecast. “We just can’t afford to do that right now,” Jones said on BBC Radio 4’s “World at One” on Wednesday, adding, “It costs between £2 billion and £3 billion a year, depending on when you look in the forecast period about how much it would cost per year.” “We’re having to make really difficult decisions, but the public rightly expects us to make those decisions in order to get public spending back under control. That means that we have to make very difficult decisions that in our hearts we wouldn’t want to have to make, and that includes the two-child cap, as well,” he said....