Labour would keep two-child benefit cap, says Keir Starmer

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Keir Starmer has confirmed that a Labour government would keep the controversial two-child benefits cap despite mounting pressure from his MPs to commit to scrapping a policy that has been blamed for pushing families into poverty.

The Labour leader said the party was “not changing that policy” even though the shadow work and pensions secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, described the cap as “heinous” and suggested in an interview last month that it had made child poverty worse.

Labour has come under pressure to pledge to abolish the cap after it emerged that one in four children in some of the poorest parliamentary constituencies in England and Wales are from families left at least ?3,000 a year worse off as a result.

In February 2020, Starmer said he wanted to scrap the limit in order to help “tackle the vast social injustice in our country”. Yet he hinted earlier this month after a speech in Kent that Labour would stick with the Tory policy. His comments on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday show appear to confirm that position.

The benefit cap means that parents are not able to claim child tax credit or universal credit for any third or subsequent child born after April 2017. It was designed to try to force parents with larger families to find new jobs or work more hours.

Critics say it has been a major driver of deepening poverty among low-income families, with the Child Poverty Action Group arguing that abolishing the limit would lift 250,000 children out of poverty and mean that a further 850,000 children would be in less severe poverty, at a cost of ?1.3bn.

Starmer’s stance is seen by some in the party as an indicator of the strength of Labour’s determination to tackle child poverty. The former prime minister Gordon Brown has previously proposed scrapping the “totally unfair” cap.

In contrast, Starmer did not rule out lifting the freeze on housing benefit, which has been in place since 2020 even though rents have soared, saying he would wait until closer to the general election to decide. “I’m not committing to that here, I’m not writing our manifesto here,” he said.

Later in his BBC interview, Starmer said that “of course” it was worth ruffling feathers on the left in order to win the next election, saying his “central promise” to members when he took over was to change the party to make it electorally viable.

“The Labour party was created to give working people not just representation in parliament but a government in parliament that can govern on their behalf and change the lives of millions of people for the better,” he said.

“I have been changing the Labour party to put us in a position where we are now credible contenders for the next election.”

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Starmer also refused to commit to further spending under a Labour government as calls grow from unions for him to back more of their policy priorities. However, he added: “A Labour government will always want to invest in its public services.”

The Labour leader has been keen to stress that he is prioritising “financial responsibility” over greater spending as the party seeks to reassure voters that it can manage the economy. He suggested that he was relaxed at being described as a fiscal conservative.

“I don’t mind what label people put on me,” he said. “I do want to make my argument. My argument is this: what was absolutely plain from last year’s mini-budget is if you lose control of the economy, it’s working people who pay.”

While he defended the party’s focus on economic responsibility, he said it would not prevent Labour from introducing reforms, including to the planning system, saying the country needed “hundreds of thousands” more homes.

In an effort to distance the party from Just Stop Oil, with which it shares a donor, Starmer described reports that Labour officials had met the environmental campaign group’s representatives as “nonsense”. He said: “There’s a right to protest but it’s not an absolute right.”