The Government must do "the sums" before considering axing the two-child benefit cap, the Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall has said.
Labour is under increasing pressure to scrap the rule which limits welfare payments to the first two children in most families.
The Liberal Democrats added another amendment to the King’s Speech that calls for an end to the cap first introduced in 2015. Ms Kendall told Times Radio on Tuesday: "We were elected on the promise that we would only make spending commitments that we know we can keep and we are facing a dire inheritance from the Tories.
"I'm not into a wink and a nudge politics.
“I'm not going to look constituents in the face and tell them I'm going to do something without actually having done the sums figuring out how I'm going to pay for it, figuring out how we transform opportunity for those children, not just in terms of their household income, which is essential, but about having sustained improvements to helping people get work and get on in work, more childcare, early years support, sorting out the dire state of people's housing.
"It's got to be part of a much bigger approach."
Liberal Democrat, SNP, some Conservative and rebel Labour MPs are expected to criticise keeping the cap during the King’s Speech debate.
Ex Home Secretary Suella Braverman called for her party to back scrapping the rule.
“It’s clear to me from my work with vulnerable families and parents that the cap isn’t working,” she said during a debate on Monday.
Ms Kendall added that Labour is "absolutely determined to make a huge difference" on tackling childhood hardship but cannot tackle the "dire inheritance" from the Tories "overnight".
“It is a political choice to prioritise driving down child poverty and driving up opportunity,” she told the BBC.
"Look, I don't need anyone telling me about the impact that child poverty has.
“I've got a third of children in my city, in Leicester, growing up poor.
“But I've also seen people dying waiting for NHS treatment. And my council budget cut by a third, the appalling state of housing in this country, millions of people written off who need to work and who could work but have been denied support, and then blamed for the position they are in.
"We face a dire inheritance from this (Conservative) government. We can't change it all overnight."
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