“Scrapping this Osborne-era punishment of poorer families is an urgent priority. It must be immediately swept away in the landslide victory of this Labour Government.”
By Labour Outlook
Ahead of the King’s Speech and the announcement of the new Labour Government’s first year priorities, Labour MPs are increasingly speaking about the urgent need to scrap the two-child benefit limit as part of its planned child poverty strategy.
Data shows that 1.6 million children are forced into poverty by the George Osborne austerity-cap and it is expected that number will increase significantly.
Scrapping the cap has been identified by the Child Poverty Action Group as the “most cost-effective way to reduce child poverty”.
MPs are now discussing how to ensure the cap is scrapped at the earliest possible opportunity. Some are proposing to table EDMs as a test of support for scrapping the policy early in the parliament, whilst there are also proposals to lay amendments to the King’s Speech if it is not included in the list of political priorities for the Govenment when Parliament opens this Wednesday.
Scrapping the cap has been a campaigning priority of Keir Starmer’s predecessor Labour Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said ahead of the General Election, “The tragedy is we are now writing the future history of our country by neglecting children who we have condemned to poverty and not being able to have a decent start in life who are going to fail in the future.”
He was joined this week by current Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, who said it, “needs to be reversed’ and that campaigners for that reversal are ‘pushing at an open door“.
Despite the breadth of support, many of the most vocal campaigners for the scrapping of the limit are from the left of the party.
Former Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell said in a video that Labour had pledged to a child poverty strategy and that he wanted the first step in that strategy to be lifting the two-child limit.
He also told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday that “the key to all our hearts is child poverty…this is a defining issue for the incoming Labour Government”.
He said, an amendment to the King’s Speech to end the two-child limit would be “a mechanism to have a debate to tell the Labour Party to set a clear timetable to implement a policy that they’ve already said they want to implement.”
He further highlighted the breadth of support for the policy, citing the support of Gordon Brown, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and over 160 organisations in the End Child Poverty coalition.
Leeds East MP Richard Burgon told the Guardian that, “scrapping the two-child benefit cap would not only lift 100,000s of children out of poverty … it’d also be a powerful statement of how our new Government will deliver the positive change people so desperately need after 14 years of cruel Tory policies.”
Liverpool Riverside Labour MP, Kim Johnson, said, “I have long campaigned against the two-child benefit cap. This policy is cruel, punitive and is pushing struggling families into further poverty. I am laying an amendment to the King’s Speech calling for the cap to scrapped – immediately lifting 250,000 children out of poverty.”
Middlesbrough and Thornaby East’s Andy McDonald said, “1.6m children are being forced into poverty by the two-child benefit cap. That is set to increase. Middlesbrough & Thornaby have some of the highest child poverty in Britain. Labour will deliver a strategy to reduce child poverty. It should include ending the two-child limit.”
Rebecca Long-Bailey MP added her voice to the call stating: “I am asking the new Labour Government to immediately lift hundreds of thousands of children across the country out of poverty now by scrapping the two-child limit on universal credit.”
Kate Osborne, the MP for Jarrow, said, “Disgrace that child poverty rose by 44% in North East since 2010. I’ve already had discussions in Parliament about eradicating child poverty, including removing two-child benefit cap.”
Durham MP Mary Kelly Foy said, “Too many families in the North East are affected by the two-child limit. We need to scrap the cap.”
Labour members should ensure their new MPs in hundreds of seats across the country are in no doubt that scrapping this Osborne-era punishment of poorer families is an urgent priority. It must be immediately swept away in the landslide victory of this Labour Government.
- See more about the campaign to end the two-child limit at End Child Poverty.
- You can read Kim Johnson MP‘s and former MP Margaret Greenwood‘s recent calls to end the two-child benefit cap.
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