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MPs will today tell Tories to lift their cruel two-child benefit limit because it’s creating more poor families.

The Commons Work and Pensions committee heard evidence that the system will throw 266,000 extra children into poverty this year.

And another 256,000 children already living below the breadline will sink even deeper into deprivation.

Josephine Tucker of the Child Poverty Action Group, told MPs: “You could not design a policy better to increase child poverty than this one.”

Payments of tax credits, Housing Benefit or Universal Credit have been restricted to two children since April 2017, which means parents are losing up to £2,780 a year for any more children they have.

(Image: Julian Hamilton/Daily Mirror)

The committee says the Government argument that families claiming benefits should face the same financial choices about having children as those supporting themselves solely through work doesn’t stack up.

That assumes third pregnancies are planned, which the evidence shows the majority are not.

And those in working families could lose their job, fall ill or become disabled.

Chairman Frank Field said: “Any family except the super-rich could fall foul of the two-child limit if their circumstances changed.

That’s why social security must act as a national insurance scheme covering people when they’re most exposed to hardship and not increase it.”

The report says the effects of the two-child policy is felt more severely

in communities in which families tend to be larger.

MPs heard evidence that Muslim andJewish communities, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Gypsy, Roma and ­Traveller communities, and families in Northern Ireland are all disproportionately affected.

A DWP spokesman said: “This policy ensures fairness by asking families getting benefits to make the same financial choices as people who support themselves solely through work, and there are exemptions and safeguards in place.”