Freezing the local housing allowance is causing a bigger cost of living pressure than the two child benefit, a council cabinet member said at the Labour party conference. There has been widespread speculation that chancellor Rachel Reeves intends to remove the two child benefit cap in her November Budget, following intense lobbying from MPs and others in the Labour movement. Cllr Hume said that while this would help, it was “actually not the biggest issue” and instead increasing LHA would help more people. She is pushing for a new housing estate to have 50% affordable housing, but “my council thinks they are going to get away with 25% affordable housing”. Really she would like to encourage more council housing but said that “may be a little bit of a bridge too far”.