Abolishing the “spiteful” two-child benefit cap is “on the table”, Labour deputy leadership candidate Bridget Phillipson has said.
In an interview with The Guardian, the Education Secretary said she was “thinking every day about how to turn the tide on child poverty” due to her own experiences growing up.
Describing the issue as “profoundly personal”, she said she wanted a “mandate to go further” as deputy leader and “make tackling child poverty the unbreakable moral mission of this Labour Government”.
She said: “Everything is on the table, including removing the two-child limit.”
Ms Phillipson’s intervention suggests an increasing willingness in the Cabinet to abolish the cap, given she is seen as Downing Street’s choice for the deputy leader position vacated by Angela Rayner.
She is also co-chair of the child poverty taskforce established by the Government last year and expected to report ahead of the Budget in November with a strategy including recommendations on the two-child cap.
Ms Phillipson added: “We should never forget that it was the Conservatives who introduced the two-child cap, a spiteful attack on children who were punished and pushed into hardship through no fault of their own.
“I have said time and again that a Labour government would never have implemented it.”
Her rival, former Commons leader Lucy Powell, has already called for ministers to be “clearer” about their wish to abolish the cap, even if it would not take place immediately.
Polling suggests Ms Powell enjoys a substantial lead with Labour members, but Ms Phillipson received the most nominations from her fellow MPs and has secured the backing of trade unions including Usdaw, Community and the National Union of Mineworkers.
Friday also saw Ms Phillipson become the first candidate to secure her place on the ballot paper, having won enough trade union support, while Ms Powell requires nominations from a handful more constituency Labour parties to make it to the membership vote.
Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, welcomed Ms Phillipson’s comments, saying: “Hopefully there is now a clear understanding across Government that unless the two-child limit is scrapped, there will be more children in poverty at the end of this Parliament than when Labour took office.
“The policy must go in the autumn child poverty strategy before the life chances of many more children are damaged on this Government’s watch.”
Although Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has not committed to abolishing the cap, he has consistently declined to rule it out as well.
But on Friday, new Labour campaign group Mainstream accused the party leadership of blocking a bid to debate the issue at the party’s conference later this month on “tenuous procedural grounds”.
Mainstream said its attempt to debate funding the abolition of the cap had been ruled out of order because it “covers more than one subject” and “did not relate to a new issue”.
The group, which is backed by Greater Manchester Mayor and reported Labour leadership hopeful Andy Burnham, had proposed debating funding abolition of the cap through taxes on online gambling and back profits.
A spokesperson for Mainstream and left-wing group Momentum, which also backed the motion, said the decision was “yet another example of the hyper-factional style of party management causing Labour to sink in the polls and members to leave in droves”.
They added: “Crucial policy issues and Labour’s offer to the British people must be debated at conference.
“Our party’s leadership is deeply mistaken if it thinks that the country is content to see children going hungry and suffering Dickensian levels of poverty.
“If this isn’t an emergency, what is? In a country as wealthy as the UK, allowing child poverty to worsen is a political choice. Labour must choose differently.”
A Labour spokesperson said: “A wide range of topics will be debated and discussed at annual conference.
“The democratically elected Conference Arrangements Committee rules on whether motions to conference are in order, in line with Labour Party rules. All party procedures have been followed.”
