Keir Starmer Removes Labour Whip From 7 MPs Who Rebelled Over Two Child Benefit Cap
3 min read
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has removed the Labour whip from seven MPs who defied him to vote for an opposition amendment calling for the two child benefit cap to be scrapped.
The new Labour Government experienced its first minor rebellion since being elected on 4 July after the Scottish National Party and the Liberal Democrats forced a House of Commons vote on abolishing the two child benefit cap.
The amendment by the SNP, which did not pass, expressed regret that scrapping the two child cap was not in the King's Speech, which sets out the Labour Government's agenda, and called on Starmer to "immediately abolish" it.
353 MPs voted against the amendment on Tuesday night, while 103 voted for it.
Seven Labour MPs defied Starmer to vote for the amendment. They included former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, former shadow business secretary Rebecca Long Bailey, and back bencher Zarah Sultana.
A Labour source confirmed to PoliticsHome that Starmer had removed the Labour whip from the seven MPs for a period of six months, at which point their status will be reviewed.
While it was highly unlikely the government would be defeated on the motion due to its 174 seat majority in the House of Commons, the rebellion by the Labour left will likely increase pressure ministers to lift the cap at the Autumn Budget.
Several dozen more Labour MPs, including senior left-winger Diane Abbott, abstained on the SNP amendment.
Earlier in the day, Labour MPs who were planning on voting for opposition amendments were warned it would result in them Labour whip.
PoliticsHome also understands Long-Bailey wrote to the whips office warning that she would be voting for the amendment on the two child cap unless the government set out concrete measures to lift it.
Throughout the General Election campaign, Labour refused to commit to scrapping the cap despite pressure to do so from elements of the left, arguing that the money was not available to do so and the party would not make "uncosted" promises.
The two-child benefit cap, which in most households restricts the receipt of benefits to a family’s first two children, was introduced in 2017 by then-Tory chancellor George Osborne. The Child Poverty Action Group has said that scrapping it would lift 250,000 children out of poverty.
In a bid to assuage back bench discontent, last week the Government announced a 'Child Poverty Strategy' to look at growing levels of poverty among children in the UK and the best way of tackling the issue.
In a further sign that the Government could change its position later down the line, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson on Monday said ministers would "consider [lifting the cap] as one of a number of levers in terms of how we make sure we lift children out of poverty”.
Most leading charities agree the cap is the leading driver of child poverty in the UK, with a report by Loughborough University published last month saying "constituency-level child poverty rates are directly and strongly correlated with the percentage of children affected by the two-child limit in that local area, providing further evidence that the policy is a key driver of child poverty."
Additional reporting by Adam Payne.
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