A LABOUR MP has said that scrapping the two-child benefit is a “matter of political will” amid a growing party rebellion against the policy.
Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme, Zarah Sultana also said that Labour can fund it "if we look at different tax decisions" and said that she wants the wealthiest to pay for it and that it’s not a "radical demand".
It puts further pressure on Keir Starmer to scrap the policy, which prevents parents from claiming universal credit or child tax credit for a third child with a few exemptions.
Writing in The Times, Canterbury Labour MP Rosie Duffield (above) also said the policy, introduced by then-chancellor George Osborne in 2015, was “sinister and overtly sexist” and had been the main reason driving her to stand for Parliament.
Duffield criticised the so-called “rape clause” which provides an exception for children conceived through an attack, saying: “The authors of this policy are telling women: disclose to a series of total strangers that your third or any subsequent children are the result of rape and we will pay you after all.”
Likening the policy to the dystopian society in Margaret Attwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, in which women are deprived of their rights, Duffield said women were being “subjugated according to their social class”.
The new Government has already come under pressure to abolish the cap from campaigners, opposition parties and some of its own backbenchers, with some rebel Labour MPs and the SNP set to move an amendment to the King’s Speech calling for the policy to be scrapped.
The Government has announced a taskforce to develop a child poverty strategy, led by Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall and Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, although many of the charities consulted by Kendall earlier in the week have also called for the cap to be abolished.
Ministers have previously suggested the state of the public finances means they cannot afford to abolish the cap.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves suggested the same on Sunday, saying it’s in Labour’s "DNA to lift children out of poverty" but refusing to make what she described as “unfunded spending commitments.”
Commenting, SNP MP and Deputy Leader at Westminster Pete Wishart (above) said: “The Labour Government’s refusal to scrap the two-child benefit cap is abhorrent and unjustifiable – and even their own MPs know it.
“For the new Chancellor to choose not to lift roughly 300,000 children out of poverty - and potentially prevent a further 670,000 from being harmed - is immoral and lays bare a real lack of determination to tackle child poverty.
“In stark contrast, the SNP government in Scotland has led the UK in tackling child poverty; introducing statutory targets and a range of additional benefits including the Scottish Child Payment, Best Start Grant and Baby Box.
“While the SNP in Government and at Westminster are ready and willing to work with this Labour Government where we believe it is in Scotland’s best interests, we will challenge them when we believe they are not going far enough.
“As long as the Labour Government continue this nonsensical refusal to scrap the two child cap, SNP MPs will call on them to change tact and lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty, immediately.”
