Sir Keir Starmer is facing pressure from Labour backbenchers to ease the two-child benefit cap to help ease child poverty after it was left out of the King’s Speech.
The Prime Minister is refusing to lift the benefit restriction on cost grounds after inheriting a stagnant economy.
Last month, before winning the election, Sir Keir said he would scrap the policy ‘in an ideal world’, but added that ‘we haven’t got the resources to do it at the moment’.
However demands for action and the prospect of a Labour rebellion grew last week as statistics from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) showed a record number of children are now affected by the controversial policy.
Leftwing Liverpool MP Kim Johnson has said she will table an amendment to the King’s Speech to try to have the cap lifted – a measure unlikely to succeed.
And today fellow Socialist Campaign Group member Zarah Sultana said: ‘Our new government must prioritise tackling child poverty. That’s why I am supporting Kim Johnson’s amendment to the King’s Speech, calling for the two-child benefit cap to be scrapped.
‘This would immediately lift 300,000 kids out of poverty. Let’s make it happen.’
In what was seen as an attempt to see off critics, Sir Keir announced the launch of a new Child Poverty Unit in the Cabinet Office shortly before the King’s Speech.
The Prime Minister is refusing to lift the benefit restriction on cost grounds after inheriting a stangnant economy.
Leftwing Liverpool MP Kim Johnson has said she will table an amendment to the King’s Speech to try to have the cap lifted – a measure unlikely to succeed.
And today fellow Socialist Campaign Group member Zarah Sultana said: ‘Our new government must prioritise tackling child poverty. That’s why I am supporting Kim Johnson’s amendment to the King’s Speech, calling for the two-child benefit cap to be scrapped.’
Led by Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall and the Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, it will ‘consider how we can use levers related to household income as well as employment, housing, children’s health, childcare and education to improve children’s experiences and chances at life’.
Sir Keir said: ‘For too long children have been left behind, and no decisive action has been taken to address the root causes of poverty. This is completely unacceptable – no child should be left hungry, cold or have their future held back.
‘That’s why we’re prioritising work an ambitious child poverty strategy and my ministers will leave no stone unturned to give every child the very best start at life.’
He said Ms Kendall this morning met with senior figures from Save the Children, Action for Children, Barnados, the TUC, the End Child Poverty Coalition, Resolution Foundation and UNICEF.
But on the same day, many of those charities reiterated calls to abolish the two-child benefit cap that affects some 1.6 million children.
They included Save the Children, which described the limit as ‘cruel’, and members of the Children’s Charities Coalition, who called the cap ‘devastating’.
Labour has faced consistent pressure to scrap the limit since before the election, from charities and its own backbenchers, with some reported to be considering backing an amendment to the King’s Speech calling for the policy to be abolished.
Calls to abolish the two-child limit come against the background of rising child poverty, with more than four million children now living in low-income households.
But the party leadership has so far resisted such calls, claiming the fiscal situation means the cap cannot be abolished unless economic growth is secured first.
Instead, the Government announced a new taskforce shortly after the King’s Speech on Wednesday to look at ‘all the available levers we have across government’ to deliver the ‘ambitious’ child poverty strategy promised in Labour’s manifesto.
In April a total of 1.6m children were living in households across Britain affected by the 2017 Tory policy – which means only the first two children in most households are eligible for Universal Credit and Child Tax Credit – up 100,000 in a year.
About half (52 per cent) were in families with three children, 29 per cent were in households with four and 19 in homes with five or more children.
London was home to the most households affected (69,000) while the least-affected region was the North East (20,000).
Campaigners said the majority of large families would be pushed below the poverty line over the next five years by the two-child benefit cap, which costs them some £3,500 a year.
The SNP criticised the King’s Speech as a ‘missed opportunity’ that failed to deliver measures such as scrapping the two-child benefit cap.
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said: ‘While some of the small measures announced are welcome, they fail to deal with the major challenges facing the UK. There was no plan to eradicate child poverty, no plan to tackle the cost of living and no plan to end Tory austerity and boost NHS funding.’