A GLASGOW MP has called for the UK Government to scrap the controversial benefit cap which affects over 1000 families in the city.

David Linden, MP Glasgow East has made the call to allow families to cope with the spiralling cost of living affecting people in the UK.

He is also the SNP's work and pension spokesperson.

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The benefit cap was introduced in 2013 and is limited to £20,000 annually for couples and families with children and just £13,400 for single adults. 

Mr Linden claims that the cap has never been increased and as a result, recipients face a real-terms cut to their income every year.

Around 1000 families in Glasgow are affected by the cap, with around 400 across the East End

Mr Linden said: "The benefit cap is a discriminatory policy which ultimately deprives tens of thousands of children of dignity.

"Because the cap is frozen, household incomes fall in real terms annually and the policy becomes increasingly more cruel year-on-year.

"We are in the midst of a full scale cost-of-living crisis and households are facing the sharpest drop in living standards in three decades, making it harder than ever for the UK Government to justify the continued imposition of the benefit cap.

"Scotland was told that it could rely on the broad shoulders of the UK but, just as we saw with the £20-a-week cut to Universal Credit, those shoulders always seem to shrug whenever the poorest and most vulnerable people need help.

"The UK Government needs to see sense and ditch this abhorrent policy once and for all."