Will Keir Starmer scrap the two-child benefit cap?

Keir Starmer faces the first major test of his premiership today after more than a dozen of his own backbenchers signalled they were prepared to defy him over the controversial two-child benefit cap.

As of last night, Politico said, 18 Labour MPs, including senior members of the Corbyn-era shadow cabinet John McDonnell and Diane Abbott, had signed an amendment to the King's Speech calling on the government to abolish the policy that would lift nearly half a million UK children out of poverty.

Introduced by the Conservatives in 2015 under the then chancellor George Osborne, the cap prevents parents from claiming universal credit or child tax credit for a third child. According to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), there are 1.6 million children living in households affected by the two-child benefit cap. 

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One Labour rebel, Rosie Duffield, has described the cap as "heinous", "sinister" and "overtly sexist", likening it to "social cleansing" worthy of the dystopian novel "The Handmaid's Tale".

What did the commentators say?

Starmer has been under "huge pressure" to ditch the cap since taking power, said the i news site.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has said the policy is "wrong" and "needs to be reversed", while Duffield, writing in The Times, said: "The obvious target is the caricature of the 'feckless', 'irresponsible' people who drop children every few minutes without being able to pay for them, but the subtext is altogether more sinister: it is an attack on women's right to choose how many children they have."

Starmer's stance so far, which was maintained throughout the election campaign despite pushback from within his own party, has been primarily dictated by the strict fiscal rules imposed by Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Earlier this year, the Resolution Foundation think tank estimated that scrapping the cap would cost up to £3.6 billion a year – but would lift around 490,000 children out of poverty – and Reeves has repeatedly insisted the government will not make "unfunded" spending promises.

But recent remarks from members of the cabinet appear to have marked a "change in tone", said The Guardian. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson told Sky News the government would "consider [lifting the cap] as one of a number of levers in terms of how we make sure we lift children out of poverty".

The prime minister – admitting there was "real passion about this in the Labour Party" – yesterday said he agreed with Phillipson, promising to "make sure that the strategy covers all the bases to drive down child poverty". "No child should grow up in poverty," he added.

What next?

With Labour enjoying a 180-seat working majority there is "little real jeopardy" that Starmer's hand could be forced by Parliament, said Politico.

But with the Lib Dems, SNP, Greens and a vocal minority of his own MPs – not to mention the former Tory home secretary and potential leadership candidate Suella Braverman – all calling for an end to the cap it is most likely a question of if not when.

It was hoped the announcement of a new government Child Poverty Taskforce, led by Phillipson and Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall, would stave off a rebellion and mollify those calling for an immediate end to the cap.

But many Labour MPs who attended a session on Monday on how the new taskforce would function were left "pissed off" by Kendall's refusal to answer direct questions and a lack of detail on the government's plans, said i news.

"It was all very vague," said one backbencher. "There were no terms of reference, no timescale, no mention of representation [on the taskforce]."

Even if 20 or so Labour MPs end up voting against the government this is "hardly a blow", said Isabel Hardman in The Spectator. "It will get much harder if, by the autumn, there aren't indications from Downing Street and the Treasury of a timetable for scrapping the cap."