LABOUR was accused today of “not caring about poverty” as it was pilloried by children’s charities for vowing to keep the two-child benefits cap in another policy U-turn.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper defended the party’s plan to keep the hated Conservative policy after Sir Keir Starmer confirmed he would retain the limit over the weekend.

She insisted Labour must be “clear about what we can fund” as she emphasised the party’s focus on economic responsibility, saying: “We opposed it when it first came in.

“And we have pointed out a whole series of different things that the Conservatives have done that are damaging, but we’ve also been really clear that anything that we say has got to be funded.”

The two-child cap prevents parents from claiming universal credit or child tax credit for a third or additional child born after April 2017.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Jonathan Ashworth recently described it as “heinous” and “absolutely keeping children in poverty.”

Earlier this year, government-commissioned research found nine in 10 of those affected by the cap did not move into employment.

Separate findings by the Child Poverty Action Group found the “deeply harmful” cap left some families with just £44 a week after paying rent.

Poverty Alliance director Peter Kelly tweeted: “Two-child limit and the benefit cap represent the worst of the welfare ‘reforms’ of the last 13 years. 

“Any politician that claims to care about poverty, about increasing foodbank use, about the well-being of kids needs to commit to scrap this terrible policy.”

UK Impact at Save the Children director Dan Paskins said: “Not providing benefits for a third child is heinous, just as Jonathan Ashworth said.”

Imran Hussain, director of policy and campaigns at Action for Children, told the Morning Star: “Any government serious about tackling child poverty will eventually  have to  confront the cruel reality of a policy that is designed to actively stop poor children receiving assistance to meet their minimum needs.”

New Economics Foundation head of social policy Tom Pollard tweeted: “Abolishing the two-child limit would lift 250,000 children out of poverty, and a further 850,000 children would be in less deep poverty at a cost of just £1.3bn.”

Joseph Rowntree Foundation associate director Chris Birt tweeted: “The two-child cap is a stigmatising attack on families struggling to get by. It actively causes child poverty. 

“Who is even defending it now?”

A Momentum spokesman said: "It is indefensible that Labour would keep the heinous, immoral and cruel two-child benefits cap.

"This cruel Tory policy has been condemned by frontbenchers from Keir Starmer to Angela Rayner to Jonathan Ashworth, let alone the trade unions, campaigners and policy experts who have exposed the horrific damage it imposes. To keep it is bad politics and worse morals."