A SCOTTISH Labour MP has urged his constituents to contact their MSPs instead of him in a copy-and-paste response to their calls to end the two-child benefit cap.
Labour backbencher Gordon McKee, the new MP for Glasgow South, also blamed the Tories for his party’s refusal to end the policy.
It comes as Keir Starmer braces for the first rebellion of his premiership, as the SNP forced a vote on Labour’s continuation of the policy.
In a generic reply to constituents, McKee – who worked for Labour MP Ian Murray (below) during the last parliament – said Labour were “not going to be able to alleviate [child poverty] overnight”.
He said: “Of course, I want to see child poverty tackled – it is one of the reasons I stood as a Labour candidate and now Labour MP.
"After 14 years of the Tories, and 17 years of the SNP in Scotland child poverty remains an endemic problem.
“It is a heartbreaking disgrace, but as I said during the election, we are not going to be able to alleviate that overnight. I wish we could, but thanks to the economic legacy we've been left by the Tories, we can't do everything that we want to right away.”
McKee added that “some elements of welfare policy are devolved to the Scottish Parliament” and recommended his constituents write to their MSPs calling for the cap to be scrapped.
While the SNP have called for the cap to be scrapped in Westminster, they have rejected calls for the Scottish Government to mitigate it, arguing it does not have the money to do so for all UK welfare policies.
McKee said: “The Scottish Government also has the power to remove the cap under their welfare powers from the Scotland Act 2016.”
The Glasgow MP also said that ending the two-child cap would be a “key consideration” of the Government’s child poverty taskforce “as soon as we're able to”.
The National understands this response has been sent word-for-word to a number of McKee's constituents.
Greens MSP Maggie Chapman (below) said the two-child cap was "one of the cruellest and most despicable policies that the Tories came up with in their 14 years of misrule".
She told The National: "Like every MP, Gordon McKee faces a choice. Does he want to keep it in place or take a stand against a reactionary Labour leadership and remove it?
"If he's happy to remove the cap on banker's bonuses for the super wealthy, then surely he will want to spend money to tackle child poverty?
"Labour must abolish the cap and do so immediately."
Co-leader of the child poverty taskforce Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, on Monday said the Government was considering ending the cap, but Starmer later poured cold water on the suggestion by refusing to explicitly back her comments.
