KEIR Starmer has been warned that keeping the two-child benefit cap would be the “ultimate betrayal” following reports that the Labour Government is planning on keeping the policy after its U-turn on cutting disability funding.
On Tuesday evening, the UK Government performed a dramatic U-turn at the eleventh hour, scrapping its most controversial reforms to welfare benefits in the middle of the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payments Bill debate.
MPs welcomed the UK Government’s climbdown but were left furious at the eleventh-hour concession to shelve cuts to Personal Independence Payments (Pip) pending the completion of a review.
The SNP are now calling for the UK Government to also U-turn on its decision to keep the two-child cap, a policy Labour has continued from the previous Tory administration, which denies child allowances in Universal Credit and tax credits to third or subsequent children born after April 2017.
Analysis from the House of Commons Library published on Wednesday revealed more than 2.3million families would be lifted out of poverty across the UK if the Labour Government abolished the two-child limit, ended the bedroom tax, and matched the Scottish Government's Scottish Child Payment.
The analysis showed that over the past decade the number of children living in poverty in the UK has risen from 3.7m (27%) in 2013/14 to 4.5m (31%) in 2023/24, along with the number of children living in poverty expected to rise to a record 4.6m (33%) by 2029-30 if urgent action is not taken.
The SNP’s calls come as senior UK government sources told journalists, Wednesday morning, that “Labour MPs have likely killed off any hope of lifting the two-child benefit cap” following the disability cuts U-turn.
SNP MP Kirsty Blackman has called for the Prime Minister to scrap the two-child benefit cap once and for all.
She said: “Keir Starmer has broken promise after promise - and he will consign thousands more children into destitution if he cynically breaks his commitment to end this punitive Labour government welfare policy, which should have been scrapped as soon as he got into Downing Street.”
The SNP Work and Pensions spokesperson also pointed to recent independent research which showed the UK Government is keeping more than 2.3m families in poverty, including 96,000 families in Scotland, by failing to match the SNP Government's action on poverty across the UK.
Blackman added: “This Labour government is a disgrace. Keeping the two child benefit cap would be the ultimate betrayal from the Labour Party, which has pushed thousands of children into poverty since coming to power.
“Keir Starmer has broken promise after promise - and he will consign thousands more children into destitution if he cynically breaks his commitment to end this punitive Labour government welfare policy, which should have been scrapped as soon as he got into Downing Street.
“The evidence shows that the Labour Party is pushing 2.3million families into poverty by failing to match SNP government action. Every day they fail to act, more children suffer.
“Scrapping the two child cap is the bare minimum. The Labour government should be going much further.”
Last month, the Scottish Government announced it will abolish the two-child benefit cap in March next year, just weeks before the Holyrood election.
Under the SNP's mitigation plan, payments could work out at nearly £3500 for children affected, which Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said would mean there will be 20,000 fewer children in relative poverty next year.
Blackman added that the Labour Government is out of touch and that it is “shameful” they are not doing more to lift children out of poverty.
She said: “After a year in power, this Labour government has shown it is completely out of touch and seems to have no principles or values it isn't willing to ditch. It is cynical politics of the worst kind - and it is why Keir Starmer's government is now best known for its broken promises, U-turns, and its shameful failure to lift a finger on poverty.”
A Government spokesperson said: “We are determined to bring down child poverty. We’ve just announced a new £1 billion package to reform crisis support, including funding to ensure the poorest children do not go hungry outside of term time.
“This comes alongside the expansion to free breakfast clubs, increasing the national minimum wage and supporting 700,000 of the poorest families by introducing a Fair Repayment Rate on Universal Credit deductions.
“We will publish an ambitious child poverty strategy later this year to ensure we deliver fully-funded measures that tackle the structural and root causes of child poverty across the country.”
