By Naomi Desouza

Copyright birminghammail

Abolishing the two-child benefit cap is “on the table”, the government confirmed this week. Labour’s Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said that scrapping the two-child benefit cap would help turn the tide on child poverty – which continues to grind down almost half of Birmingham’s young people. Axing the two-child cap would be huge for Birmingham, where a significant number of families have more than two children. READ MORE: Birmingham: A child poverty emergency READ MORE: Mystery of Birmingham man who vanished on France ferry trip after ‘looking for place to sleep’ Almost half of our Birmingham’s children are growing up in sustained poverty. The BBC reported on Friday that Phillipson’s comments were “the clearest sign yet that ministers could scrap the policy.” In an interview with The Guardian, the Education Secretary said she was “thinking every day about how to turn the tide on child poverty” due to her own experiences growing up. Describing the issue as “profoundly personal”, she said she wanted a “mandate to go further” as deputy leader and “make tackling child poverty the unbreakable moral mission of this Labour Government”. She said: “Everything is on the table, including removing the two-child limit.” BirminghamLive has campaigned to end the two-child benefit cap to help lift city kids out of poverty. Across Birmingham , around 17,000 families, or 60% of those in receipt of Universal Credit or Child Tax Credit, are adversely affected by the cap. The city has more large families than many other places, with the proportion of Birmingham families claiming Child Benefit who have four or more children over twice as high as nationally. The two-child cap can cost a family household up to £3,455 a year, says the Child Poverty Action Group. Ms Phillipson added: “We should never forget that it was the Conservatives who introduced the two-child cap, a spiteful attack on children who were punished and pushed into hardship through no fault of their own. “I have said time and again that a Labour government would never have implemented it.” The two-child benefit cap started under a Conservative government in April 2017, and prevents households from claiming universal credit or child tax credit for a third or any subsequent child born after this date.