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Louise Thomas
Editor
Labour will not use its first Budget to scrap the two-child benefit cap, a member of Sir Keir Starmer’s government has said.
Torsten Bell, parliamentary private secretary to the influential Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden, predicted the measure would not be repealed in the October 30 statement.
The former chief executive of the Resolution Foundation and new MP for Swansea West warned against politicians making undeliverable or unfunded promises.
Speaking at the Edinburgh Book Festival, Mr Bell said: “You’ve got to be clear where that money’s coming from and that’s what budgets are for and the government’s committed to a child poverty strategy.”
He added: “My view is, why don’t you let the ministers that are writing your child poverty strategy publish that strategy before you start criticising them?
“They accept there is a child poverty strategy coming ... not in time for the Budget on 30 October but soon in the months after that, so that’s what I’ll be looking out for.”
The two-child benefit cap, imposed by Tory former chancellor George Osborne, prevents parents from claiming benefits for any third or subsequent child born after April 2017.
Sir Keir had previously called for the policy to be scrapped but has since said Labour cannot fund the move and will not promise to do so until it can say how the change would be paid for.
He and chancellor Rachel Reeves have faced mounting calls from backbench Labour MPs and campaigners to remove the limit, which would bring 300,000 children people out of poverty and 700,000 more out of deep poverty, according to the Child Poverty Action Group.
Mr Bell has called the policy “appalling” in his book Great Britain? How We Get Our Future Back. Speaking at the festival, he said: “It’s fine for policy wonks and politicians living on high salaries to debate the finer points of parliamentary procedures and the timing of policies but children in my constituency are living in poverty now.”
He added that previous Labour governments had “always brought down childhood poverty”, though adding it had not happened on a wide enough scale.
Labour has also come under intense pressure from the SNP over the two-child limit, with the Scottish Nationalists forcing an early rebellion against Sir Keir on the issue.
After voting on an SNP-led amendment to his first King’s Speech to scrap the cap, seven Labour MPs had the whip suspended.
The prime minister removed the whip from longstanding figures including former shadow chancellor John McDonnell and left-winger Zarah Sultana.
SNP deputy Westminster leader Pete Wishart said: “At every opportunity so far, Labour has failed to scrap the two-child limit which would lift thousands of children out of poverty immediately, and it now seems they are preparing to scupper the next opportunity to do the right thing – it is shameful.”
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