A cabinet minister has said Labour will "consider" scrapping the two-child benefit cap amid increasing pressure.

The cap was introduced by George Osborne on April 5 2017 and prevents parents from claiming child tax credit or universal credit for a third child, and any subsequent, if they were born after that date.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, it currently affects two million children and will encompass close to 700,000 more by the end of the current parliament, with campaigners saying its removal could lift 300,000 out of poverty.

The new Labour government has so far suggested the state of the public finances means they cannot afford to abolish the benefit limit unless economic growth is secured first, but it is facing pressure from opposition parties and its own backbenches.

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The SNP have tabled one of four amendments to the King's speech which call for the cap to be scrapped, with another from six Labour MPs; a third by the party's former leader Jeremy Corbyn, now an independent MP, and the Greens; and a fourth by four independent MPs.

It is up to the speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, to select which amendment, if any, is put to a vote and while any amendment would be defeated it would put Mr Starmer in a difficult position.

The Liberal Democrats, the SNP, the Green Party and Reform UK all oppose the cap and a number of Labour MPs would rebel to vote against it.

Now Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has said that its removal will be "considered".

She told Sky News: “Too many young people in our country are growing up in poverty. That number increased massively under the Conservatives.

“There are a range of measures that we will need to consider in terms of how we respond to this.”

On ditching the two-child benefit limit, she continued: “Unfortunately it’s also a very expensive measure, but we will need to consider it as one of a number of levers in terms of how we make sure we lift children out of poverty.

“Housing is a big factor… The fact that for lots of families work doesn’t pay in the way that it should, and that increasingly what we see is that children are growing up in poverty where there is at least one person in that household in work.

“We will look at every measure in terms of how we can address this terrible blight that scars the life chances of too many children.”