The two-child benefit cap has ‘no significant effect’ on a third child’s school readiness, according to a new study. The IFS study used official data from 90,000 children to see how the two-child benefit cap affected their ‘school readiness’. School readiness is routinely assessed by teachers at the end of Reception, with results collated centrally. The report said lifting the cap could help in ‘reducing child poverty itself’, but not necessarily school readiness. Mrs Phillipson, the Education Secretary, is making the two-child benefit cap central to her bid to become Labour’s Deputy Leader.