SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn has urged Scottish Labour MPs to support a move to scrap the two-child benefit cap.
The party has tabled an amendment to the King’s Speech calling for the cap to be axed in what Mr Flynn is describing as a “test” of the new Labour government’s pledge to deliver real change for the country.
The government has said it will set up a taskforce to deliver a strategy to tackle child poverty but Mr Flynn has previously described this as a “cynical attempt to kick the issue into the long grass”.
The cap was introduced by former UK Conservative chancellor George Osborne in 2015 and restricts child welfare payments to the first two children born to most families.
The SNP’s amendment to remove the cap, which will be debated today, is understood to have the support of former Labour leader and now independent MP Jeremy Corbyn as well as the Green and Plaid Cymru MPs.
The debate comes after Labour MP Rosie Duffield said in a Sunday newspaper the two-child benefit cap amounts to “social cleansing” and is an “anti-feminist and unequal piece of legislation”.
She wrote in an article for The Sunday Times: “It is a heinous piece of legislation and the reason above all others that I was driven to stand as a Member of Parliament.
“With the introduction of such a sinister and overtly sexist law, I was propelled to Westminster to stop it.”
She continued: “It legislates against women’s autonomy over their own bodies, the exact opposite of anything that could possibly be described as a Labour Party value.
“The Labour Party needs to recognise that this is an issue of social cleansing, an anti-feminist and unequal piece of legislation, and scrap it in line with our previous party position since its conception.”
The two-child cap was the Tories operating at their worst, so scrapping the cap would deliver on the promise made to the public for real change
Stephen Flynn MP
Mr Flynn said ahead of today’s debate: “We’ve worked constructively with other groups in Westminster to deliver a cross-party movement to scrap the child benefit cap but, sadly, no Labour MP from Scotland appears willing to join these efforts.
“Anas Sarwar and his Labour MPs in Scotland have said the cap should go, and our amendment gives them the opportunity to put those words into action – it’s a fairly easy test for them to pass should they wish to do so.
“The two-child cap was the Tories operating at their worst, so scrapping the cap would deliver on the promise made to the public for real change.
“Every child poverty charity in Scotland and beyond recognises that this policy penalises children and keeps them rooted in poverty. We’ll vote to do the right thing by those bairns and I would encourage other Scottish MPs to do likewise.”
Questioned about the pressure on Labour to lift the two-child benefit cap during an interview broadcast on BBC1 on Sunday morning, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said she was not willing to make any unfunded spending commitments.
She said on Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: “We were really clear during the election that we were not going to make spending commitments without being able to say where the money was going to come from.
“If we’re not able to say where the money is going to come from, we can’t promise to do it. That’s true when it comes to the two-child limit and anything else.
“Previous Labour governments have lifted kids out of poverty, it is what is in our DNA. We will do that, but I’m not willing to make unfunded commitments.”
A UK Government spokesperson said: “As the PM has made clear, no child should be in poverty – and the Government is committed to developing an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty and give children the best start in life.
“The new ministerial taskforce will explore how we can use all the available levers across government to create an ambitious strategy, and we will continue to work closely with all of the devolved governments as we bring forward this urgent work.”
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