Almost 16 months after suspending seven of its own MPs for voting to cut the two-child benefit cap, the Labour government has done just that. In the Budget on Wednesday (26 November) Chancellor Rachel Reeves scrapped the policy which allows parents to only claim benefits for two children. The government estimates this will pull 450,000 children out of poverty.
But there are several members of the Parliamentary Labour Party who think Reeves should have done this months ago. An SNP amendment to the King’s Speech in July 2024 offered Labour this very opportunity: Richard Burgon, John McDonnell, Ian Byrne, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Apsana Begum, Imran Hussain and Zarah Sultana all thought they should take it. All seven were duly suspended (while six of the MPs have now had the whip reinstated, Sultana quit the Labour Party in July and is now working to co-found a new left-wing party alongside former Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn).
Today, these MPs are looking on this as a mea culpa moment for the government. As Byrne told the New Statesman, “We were right and what the Chancellor said today in the chamber, we were saying months ago.” Byrne, who is the MP for Liverpool West Derby, added: “I’m delighted that 3,000 kids from West Derby will be lifted out of poverty.”
Burgon agreed. He told the New Statesman, “Having been suspended over the two-child cap I’m delighted it’s finally been scrapped.” Burgon said that under a Labour government, “no child should be living in poverty in our society” and called on the government to wage “total war on child poverty”. But he warned that the government must learn lessons from this saga. “If ministers had listened to – rather than threatened and suspended – Labour backbenchers in the first place on this, on disability cuts, and on winter fuel support, then they wouldn’t be in such a mess.” McDonnell was similarly pleased: “I am hoping this is just the first step in tackling the child poverty that scars our community,” he told the New Statesman. But like Burgon, he had a warning for the government. “Hopefully as well, lessons have been learnt about how the government governs, and in future by listening and respecting the views of its supporters we get better policy making,” McDonnell added.
Reeves will address a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) in Westminster this evening (26 November). The lifting of the two-child benefit cap is one of this tricky Budget’s most positive headline policies; it is easy to wonder whether she will be questioned on the government’s Damascene conversion to the seven rebels’ way of thinking. The New Statesman understands that Reeves hasn’t spoken to any of the rebels’ spokespeople about this specifically, and when asked whether she would seek to address this issue at the PLP meeting on Wednesday night, a spokesperson for the Chancellor said: “I’m sure the Chancellor will address the Budget at tonight’s meeting, including the two-child cap.”
Outside of Labour, the suspension of Sultana and her consequent resignation has had a longer tail. Your Party – the nascent left-wing movement which she is currently founding – will hold its inaugural conference this weekend, and will likely look to make hay from some of the government’s trickier measures. When asked about the government’s U-turn, Sultana told the New Statesman, “I’m proud to have lost the Labour whip for backing an amendment to abolish this cruel policy.” She accused the government of knowingly keeping “thousands of children in avoidable, grinding poverty for almost a year-and-a-half. The human cost of that failure is devastating.”
To many – though the government has now U-turned – that it was so willing to suspend members of its own backbenches for calling for its abolition was a disappointing revelation. Sultana echoed this: “It’s clear today’s Labour Party has abandoned its roots, and will not lift a finger to help working-class people unless it is pushed, challenged and shamed into action.”
Though Reeves has likely staved off imminent back-bench outrage with this heavily trailed measure, the warnings echoed by Burgon, Byrne and McDonnell are prescient. Traditional Labour supporters are growing tired with the government’s flip-flopping on what they see as fundamentally Labour policies and its treatment of the left within the party. With other options, such as Your Party and the Green Party – no matter how chaotic – emerging to the left, if the government does not improve its political judgement, Labour could find itself facing down enemies inside the party once again.
[Further reading: The two-child benefit cap was a scar on the country’s soul]
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