For those unaware of it, Labour suspended the whip from seven of its MPs last night after they voted against the King's Speech because it did not include a commitment to end the two child benefit cap.
Let me just take some facts here.
The two child benefit is thought likely to be a major contributing factor in at least 330,000 children living in extreme poverty in the UK , and more than 400,000 other children living in poverty.
These figures do, of course, ignore the impact of this poverty on the parents of those children.
The cost of this cap is thought to be £1.7 billion, but the Labour front bench appears to have mysteriously increased this sum to £3 billion.
That said, as I noted on Twitter last night, child poverty in the UK could be eliminated by ending the higher rate tax relief on pension contributions that the wealthiest in this country enjoy, saving almost £15 billion in tax reliefs for those wealthy people as a result, with about £12 billion then being left over to end other Tory abuses of those in need, such as the bedroom tax and the absurd rules in the carer's allowance that have turned it into a nightmare for many.
Starmer and Reeves have, however, turned this issue into a virility test. They are determined that maybe 730,000 children must suffer so that they can demonstrate their commitment to making Rachel Reeves' spreadsheets balance, even though that exercise in spreadsheet balancing is, in itself, an exercise in pure economic dogmatism.
Seven MPs subjected to this dogmatic refusal to relieve poverty. As most of them explained on Twitter, they represent constituencies where the rate of child poverty is very high. It is more than 45% in some of their constituencies. They believe they have a duty to represent the interests of children in the places for which they are Members of Parliament. For doing so, they have had the Labour whip suspended.
I believe those MPs who  voted in accordance with their consciences in an attempt to relieve poverty amongst children in this country did the right thing last night.
I believe Starmer and Reeves have made a gross error of judgement. Not only do they prove that they appear to be governing in the interests of those with wealth, coupled with indifference towards the needs of those in poverty, but they have shown that they will also pursue a Tory policy rather than make the changes that one would expect of a supposed Labour Party. I do quite genuinely wonder how the burden of such actions on their consciences lets them sleep at night. If they did not seek power to relieve child poverty, what is the point of them having it?
I had low expectations of Starmer and Reeves before they got into office. Now, I have none at all. They have made clear that they wish to maintain benefits for the wealthy whilst penalising the poorest and most vulnerable in our society so that the rich might prosper. There is no form of morality that I know of that can justify that behaviour. It is as if the Party now exists in a moral void.
I stand with the seven suspended MPs as a result. I rather hope they never go back.
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It’s a really strange hill to die on, especially as the two-child cap will have to be reversed at some point. I assume that the decision to withdraw the whip was ‘to encourage the others’, and underline how seriously Starmer will deal with rebels, but my goodness what an issue to pick for your first fight!
The management style confirms the very worst conclusions of “The Starmer Project”
Political egos….
Depressing ain’t it ?
Ego?
I think not.
This is timidity.
Or even worse, tacit agreement with the Tory party and the ‘ruling class’.
A Labour party should be giving back that which has been taken away.
It still stands that billions of £’s of free money was given to bail out a private banking crisis that occurred because they increased their losses through greed and stupidity. And the apparent answer to that is that money was taken away from people having more than one child!
Why not ask for that bail out money back?
But this is after all a world where it is OK to bomb Gaza and water board innocent Muslims who are not terrorists.
A world where the innocent and the weak are made to pay for the crimes of others.
A more perverse moral code I could not dream of in my worst nightmares.
Starmer and Reaves built the hill and chose that we all stand on it. I wish the hill was different.
All political careers die at some point. And at some point the choice of which hill is taken away. The 7 thought to themselves this one is as good as any other.
I am not sure the 2 child cap policy will be reversed. I think it is more likely that extra provisions will be provided by means testing. Which means that those that need it wont apply for it.
And if you fill out the wrong form, except to be treated like the post office workers.
Suspending the Whip is a very bad look for the Labour leadership. They are thinking “strong and determined”… everyone else just thinks “bully”.
Agreed
Hello Richard,
as you’ve explained giving a commitment to ending child poverty by ending the cap on child benefit would have been a move in the right direction. Even increasing the cap to three kids would have been helpful but as you’ve shown this government is only interested in power and keeping the wealthy happy. What as happened to the seven MPs in not only disgusting but to me is the first step towards a right wing government which won’t be led by Starmer.
Derek Toyne
John Rentoul of the Independent thinks it is the sting of strong government, but then he would.
You’re right: he would
I always take disagreement with him as a barometer for what is right
Rentoul?
‘Rent-a-Tool’ more like – and there is lots of them…………………..
Hi Richard,
I think this was inevitable. Hats off to those MPs who did stand with their constituents. I note the BBC is using the IFS value of £3.2billion, and that a labour source is quoted as saying they will not make “unfunded” promises.
As you have noted here, the Taxing wealth report suggests ways to enable this that would be “fully funded”, however, neither MSM or even the rebel MPs have raised this.
Again, the BBC is highlighting this as a show of strength, for Starmer – sod the kids in poverty eh! This also indicates how little democracy we really have. One man now controls parliament, and we cannot change that by any means except revolution or another 78 Labour MPs suddenly growing a conscience.
Revolution is probably more likely
Regards
“One man now controls parliament”, –
do you think he will have a special chair made? Do we have any idea who Brutus, Cassius etc might be?
History repeating itself? although Starmer is far too thick to be a Gaius Ceasar of the Julli (& is certainly no Cromwell).
@ Sean. Well said Sean!
“The beating of the children will continue until they understand who’s boss!”
It would seem we have to pretend that the Labour Party in all the years it’s been out of office never came across the issue of the two-child benefit cap (the Tories imposed it in 2017, seven years ago for God’s sake!) and so never developed a clear cut policy on it. If you believe that you’ll believe anything!
Starmer is a moral derelict full of his own self-importance, not far off Donald Trump!
And on the day that it is revealed that ‘Big Ears’ is to receive an over 50% rise in the sovereign grant – the basis for which his macho PM won’t be reviewing for another two years. Apparently ‘needed’ for a 775 room palace’s renovation. Nice to know that Starmer’s regime will make sure that the light in the nth spare bathroom will get updated.
Note to Scottish voters conned into voting for Starmer’s lobby fodder. Not one – none, absolutely none – of the faux ‘Scottish’ Labour MPs had the ‘independence’ of mind or the human moral decency to vote for the abolition of the two child cap. They are the poodles who now OWN it.
To be clear, the seven suspended Labour MPs did not vote *against* the Kings Speech – the motion to approve it passed at the end of the debate in the Commons yesterday without a vote.
But they did break the whip by voting for an amendment proposed by the SNP (like two other amendments, a previous one proposed by the Conservatives, and a subsequent one proposed by the Lib Dems, all were rejected by the Labour majority). A fine distinction I suppose.
Several other Labour MPs abstained on that amendment (just didn’t vote for or against).
Over the empty stomachs of the 3rd child is an utterly bonkers place to display your misplaced political virility. Why do comfortably off politicians continually do this? It’s not just here, it’s all over the world. Such a frustrating human failing.
Ruling out the end of the 3 child limit in the campaign was a gross error of judgement by Starmer. I think it definitely contributed to the depression of the Lab vote share at the election. He’s now boxed in.
It should have been very obvious way before the general election that the moral derelict Keir Starmer would box himself in very quickly but many voters have tin-ears to use an old adage!
MPs represent their constituents. Suspending the whip (so they no longer represent their Party) is not only the act of the bully, it is non-democratic.
There are SO many issues wrapped up in this and all of them have me spitting feathers ( and invectives too rude to write!!).
1. The moral and economic illiteracy. What kind of animal says “meh, let the kids starve, they are only the kids of the working and non working poor and that’s not who Starmer’s Labour represents”.
If Reeves was such a clever chancellor she would have looked at the whole life costs (social & economic) of , now Labour’s, starve the children policy and argued that continuing with it was economic madness – and shown her calculations. But that would have required someone with economic noise and a belief in societal equality.
2. Did the 20% of UK voting population who put 412 Starmer’s Labour MPs in place elect 405 clones? Are they ALL morons with no backbone?
Is this what we are supposed to accept as democracy for the next 5 years? If so – disband parliament now as it is a costly anachronism and Starmer’s Labour ( 7 principled MPs aside) is in effect the Borg.
Government by diktat of whichever lobbying groups have schmoozed Keir & Rach the most?.
It’s going to be a very very long 5 years.
I’m sure that those hundreds of thousands of impoverished children will be agog, waiting for the results of the ‘Poverty task force’ which Labour has announced will be established. How long before this task force report is released, do you reckon? Six months? A year? How long after that until legislation is passed to make a difference? Let’s hope that not too many of those children develop rickets or have their growth stunted too much while we wait, eh?
It’s the Meatloaf version of government, ‘I would do anything to reduce child poverty, but I won’t do that…’
P.S. Torsten Bell is a disgraceful hypocrite.
Burnham showed his true, Bliarite colours yesterday making the hollow “be patient” argument. I wouldn’t be patient if I were watching while my child starves, and that is happening now, in real time.
Spot on
Does he not get it? Obviously not…
Labour’s client journalists have been hailing the ‘adults back in the room’. I suggest they take off their rose-tinted glasses and look very closely at who they are calling adults. Starmer is actually a cruel despot who cares nothing for the poorest in our society (or the innocents in Palestine either for that matter).
It is expected he will have to dump the policy at some point because this will haunt him and his party for their whole term in office. Good! Meanwhile, he’s happy to force suffering on children and their families in order to make some sort of grand gesture at a point in the future. That is unforgivable. This is not Labour. This is a party hollowed out by the misnamed ‘Keir’ Starmer. Keir Hardie will be birling in his grave.
Apparently, the suspended Labour MPs don’t have an automatic right of return to the party when their 6 months’ suspension is up. They will have to undergo a review presumably to ensure they are of the the right Labour mindset. Wrongthinkers will be kicked out. Well done to the dissident seven, it’s not a party I would want to be a member of.
I was speaking to an old friend, a member and campaigner for the labour party. I was expressing my concerns about Starmer. He told me not to worry, that after the election labour would shift to the left.
It must be becoming clear to the labour left wing that will not happen, that we have a right wing (not moderate) labour party. A labour party that 50 years ago would proudly call itself Conservative. Clearly there is no space in Starmer’s party for anyone with a conscience. Soon, the left wing of labour must realise that, as in the ’80s with the SDP, they have to form a breakaway party.
This could result, at the next election, with labour, like the Tories, having their vote split. Perhaps we could have “Labour with a Conscience” versus reform. That would be interesting.
There isn’t a Labour Party it’s now a quasi-fascist party. That should be clear (especially after Richard’s Taxing Wealth Report) with Parliament full of its shills for the rich!
Time to revisit the list that you made shortly after they were elected…. earlier this month (gosh nothing like getting dissapointment in early).
Given the disarray of the Tories – as you note it would not have been a big deal & link the action to ending tax relief on pensions for the very rich to child poverty reduction.
Nice bit of triangulation that LINO were too dim to even consider:
“we are reducing your tax relief so children don’t live in hunger and poverty. ”
You would be exposed as callous to protest against it.
Ah well: LINO for the (rich) few, not the (poor) many.
“We are not the party of people on benefits. We don’t want to be seen, and we’re not, the party to represent those who are out of work,” she said. “Labour are a party of working people, formed for and by working people.”
Rachel Reeves, interview with the Guardian, Tuesday 17th March, 2015. And with her usual callous indifference, she ignores the fact that many working people are on benefits.
Agreed
Thank you, IMH.
She said similarly in 2010 and has always been a narrow minded and authoritarian so and so and leveraged family connections to get a safe seat. What was she thinking of working for HBOS, a job she’s not keen to talk about.
Thank you and well said, Richard here and on X.
@ Richard: I note the far from super centrist log roller Tanskii giving you a hard time online. I wouldn’t bother with her. I will spare you the libel risks.
Readers and Richard may have noticed the tone of client journalists this morning, “show of strength, ruthless in opposition and in government, there’s no money, how can you serve your constituents, why rebel so early”. When it comes to rolling out the trampoline for Murdoch, e.g. not proceeding with Leveson II and stopping short of full rapprochement with the EU, Starmer is anything, but ruthless.
I have said before and say it again. For those of you able to emigrate, please do so.
Aside: I was particularly pleased to see fellow Catholics and Socialists Rebecca Long-Bailey and Richard Burgon vote with their conscience. Burgon was really good in Harehills last week-end, unlike the Home Secretary.
One reply was enough
She has clearly drunk the koolaid
Thank you, Richard.
And Braverman in the Guardian article this morning saying she would make a plea to her party favouring a scrapping of the cap.
Amazing how the conscious clarity returns when in opposition !
To be fair, Braveman has been advocating for the removal of the cap for a while, although she did originally vote for it.
I was expecting something like this from Starmer. These MPs are not going to get let back into the party in 6 month’s time so now is the time to organise a proper left alternative party to Labour. I will look on the bright side and see that Starmer has just gifted us 7 MPs. Is he going to do this every time there’s a rebellion? A confident and secure-in-themself leader would have kept them in.
I hope this will now finally disabuse people of the idea that there will be a “leftward shift” from Labour.
Starmer stated that he would put country before party but by suspending the six MPs he has simply shown that party is far more important than anything else to him, and I would say this whether I agree with the six or not.Parliament should be a place for discussion and disagreement where the ins and outs of important issues should be looked into and people can vote with their conscience.
I knew Starmer would behave in such a small minded, bullying way having ignored the Labour Conference’s vote for PR and even his own past statements that PR would make our system fairer and level things up or words to that effect.
So glad I didn’t vote for Labour, though I live in a safe Labour seat as we now see the danger of a government with a huge majority[In terms of seats not votes] which thinks it can do anything it wants.These 6 MPs should have been shown respect by being left alone and allowed to vote as they felt right.
A little humility might not go amiss Sir Starmer and don’t get too full of yourself as if you reject PR in future you may end up losing big time.
I remember the words of Gilbert and Sullivan
‘I was sent ….into Parliament.I always voted at my party’s call and never thought of thinking for myself at all.I thought so little they rewarded me…’Has nothing changed?
Starmer is hot air and weasel words.I hope he will not get his way always .
It is likely that the majority of Labour MPs agreed with the suspended members. (e.g. Kim Johnson)
For Starmer this has a long-term consequence.
Now, whenever a Labour MPs says something, you will not know whether they mean it, or whether they are just repeating what they were told to say.
@ Michael G.
“Now, whenever a Labour MPs says something, you will not know whether they mean it, or whether they are just repeating what they were told to say.”
Or in very simple terms being shills for the rich like their boss!
I think the most telling thing about this new government is the Liz Kendall is at the front and centre of things and seems to be interviewed on TV every other day at the moment.
Back in the leadership campaign in 2015, I remember thinking how appalling she was and how somebody so far to the right really shouldn’t be in the Labour Party in the first place. Now she fits right in. And she’s moved even further to the right, if anything.
She had a car crash on Gaza yesterday
Today, Labour would not put a minister out, after three weeks in office. Bizarre.
She was on Sky News this morning but I have to admit I couldn’t hear what she was talking about because I was too busy washing up and getting the kids their breakfast!
I’d imagine it was something along the lines of, ‘The thrashings will continue until morale improves’.
I know there was an announcement that they want to change the DWP from the ‘Department of Welfare to a Department for Work’.
Unfortunately the ‘blueprint’ for achieving this misses out the biggest factor – you’ve got to have the bloody jobs available for people to get them!
Kendall (and Reeves & Co), need to be reminded that “It’s the economy, stupid” which needs to improve to get people back into work. Employment support policies, however well-considered (and I doubt many of them are) won’t make much difference if the economy isn’t creating good jobs in the first place.
@mariner
Oh, for a return to the halcyon days of commitment to macroeconomic policy based on full employment. That fella Keynes again….
BoE monetary policy based on squeezing employment and deflation sure ain’t going to deliver
Underemployment is as equal a curse.
But even if we take this issue from the field of morality (and it is definitely immoral), it doesn’t make sense. Birth- rate in the UK overall is at the all-time low and falling. Birth-rate in Scotland is more than alarmingly low (lower than Italy or Spain which are at the bottom of Europe in this regard) and together with limits imposed on immigration is threatening the very fabric of Scottish society and economy. There isn’t a government in Europe (left, right or centre) who aren’t trying to deal with possible and probable causes of this – childcare, housing, children poverty, health care etc. In UK it’s a topic that seems to interest only SNP.
I think it is more to do with parents making a choice of having less children to raise with the impending climate issues
But that still leaves an issue
I’m sure that with some people it is, but surveys do show that quite a few people would like to have children, when they don’t have them or have more children, but that they simply don’t think that they can afford them.
I’m definitely (and I can’t stress this enough) not into forcing people into having children (I don’t have any myself), but I would like to live in a society where people who do want to have children can have them without thinking whether they’ll be able to house them, feed them, clothe them and afford childcare when they go to work.
And such low birth-rates as Scotland has are a serious problem – for the functioning of the whole of society.
There is some evidence that microplastics might be responsible for a decline in sperm counts, with other pollutants affecting overall fertility:
https://www.ft.com/content/f14ab282-1dd3-46bf-be02-a59aff3a90ed
The maintenance of the two-child cap and the suspension of nine MPs by Labour is only possible because of FPTP; which is the only electoral system able to produce a two-Party cartel in Parliament, and very large majorities for the winner. With a majority in single figures, Starmer wouldn’t dare do this. This is all a simple demonstration of the Labour-Conservative Westminster Cartel in action.
The two child cap is a Conservative policy. That is a fact. Labour is prepared to sanction MPs (giving a warning that this operation is now an electoral dictatorship – good conscience doesn’t count) to protect an obscene Conservative policy. Westminster operates a simple rule after all elections; the Government is formed by the Single Transferable Party. The fundamentals, in economics, in monetary policy, in the lack of moral conscience always stay the same: Neoliberalism prevails, no matter what. Elections are just ritual dances to give the illusion of democratic credence. The Single Transferable Party rules.
The flimsy defence for this political obscenity (assisted no doubt by polling/focus-grouping of an electorate that doesn’t understand the scale of the demographic crisis we are in, doesn’t want to know, and that the electorate – after all – created through their choices, or the calamitous consequences now hurtling toward us; but that is for another day) rests on the cost of scrapping the two-child cap: £3Bn. The fear induced by big numbers is its only merit. £3Bn represents 0.002% of £1.5Trn of total government expenditure (2023). The fear only works because it is founded in ignorance, and doesn’t compare the evil of child poverty with the relative insignificance of the cost of fixing it. For the record, £3Bn represents 0.0012% of the £2.5Trn national debt.
Mr Warren, what jumped out for me in your post was the phrase: “political obscenity”.
“Obscene” is the only reasonable word to use, given the small amount of money involved (£1.5bn? £3bn?) and the resources of the state.
I wonder what Starmer sees in the shaving mirror in the morning, his children – well fed and watered (as they should be) while hundreds of thousands aren’t.
I wonder what goes through his mind? (we need to win this election…. oh hang on – we have with a landslide …. strong & stable … must not be seen to be weak…. no money left etc)
LINO are writing their epitaph – & it ain’t going to be a nice one.
I very much agree
Does he have a conscience?
It doesn’t make any material difference to the statement, but isn’t £3billion 0.12% of £2.5 trillion? I think you forgot to multiply by 100 to get the percentage value!
And I was quite pleased there were few bloopers; a rarity for me, in my haste. But at least someone is reading to the end!
Tend to agree with Oliver – it shows Starmer to be both a bully and also insecure – a sign of weakness.
I thought Starmer would want to demonstrate his macho credentials early on – but it is telling that the government may not be silly enough to have an immediate showdown with the doctors, nurses, other health workers, train drivers etc, to the extent that Reeves has signalled she might allow ‘inflation busting’ pay awards.
Removing the whip from the magnificent seven is easier than appearing to massage their own much-trumpeted fiscal ‘rule’.
They have made themselves fiscal hostages – so its still not clear how they will break free – They may still say schools and hospitals have to fund pay rises out of their existing budgets – suicidal.
Blimey where do you start,
I have said many times on the comments here that the Labour leadership would sow the seeds of their own eventual defenestration, I just didn’t realise how early they would start.
Just three weeks into their tenure and they have chosen an absolutely stupid fight tp pick.
I can only conclude that Starmer is as shit at politics as Sunak was.
Labour have a problem. They know that the country will be disinclined to vote them into power unless they echo the tory neoliberal line. Rachel Reeves has done this in spades. (But I wonder if she knows the truth?) They act in this way even though they may wish to do otherwise, so options are limited. The mainstream media exert a lot of pressure, and are also relentless in their pursuit of any perceived deviation.
Until there is at least some understanding of the truth (as discussed here by Richard) about how government finances actually work, there will be little change.
I suggest that there needs to be a planned re-education of the general public, perhaps led by economists and others who are fully aware of the economic realities of government finances and real spending constraints. Could it be led/started from here?
Whilst it is true that if they tried to break their fiscal rules the mostly rightwing MSM would lash into them – the fact is that for 5 years, there is really nothing the country can do about the Government, so it would be better to break the rules now (and remember, Labour decided to accept the Tory latest made up fiscal rules), and in 5 years time show how the country has benefited.
Agreed
And they could say they had to end this Tory abuse…
Instead they have now made it their own
Yes, I agree with you and Richard, but I don’t see change coming from the politicians of any colour; they are too bound up in neoliberal ‘thinking’. This is why I am suggesting that pressure needs to come from a different direction. I suspect that if the general public realised the economic truth as espoused here, then the position taken up by Reeves (now) would become untenable. Somehow it is necessary for neoliberal economic authodoxy to become a vote loser.
I’m sure there might be other ways of achieving this. It is most frustrating that academia are teaching what I consider to be rubbish. Young adults get taught all of this and then it get used in reports etc and in advice to policians to society’s detriment.
This is why I am engaged in a project on creating a new first year accounting text book
Furthermore, in 5 years time after doing nothing to alleviate the suffering of these families nor repairing hospitals schools, or comunities what will the parents of these children be thinking?
The Tories made our lives crap and wouldn’t help us,
We tried Labour and they were just as crap and they wouldnt help us, what about that nice man Farage he might help us.
It’s so bleeding obvious it’s going to happen I could scream out loud.
Honestly the stupidity simply stunning
Even Kamala Harris said that the Democrats plan “A future where no child has to grow up in poverty.”
https://youtu.be/HHKaTy9hD-E?si=XCm6bXpRyw_5SxuW&t=629
I have this morning sent congratulations to my new MP Richard Burgon on his ethical and moral stance.
I also attached a summary copy of the Taxing Wealth report and encouraged him to disseminate the thinking far and wide.
Thanks
Unfortunately my new MP voted with the government but I emailed him to let him know how angry I was, and also sent him a copy of the Taxing Wealth 2024 report!
Thanks
The Labour leadership have made fools of themselves over this, but to be fair no government can accept an opposition motion that requires expenditure which isn’t part of the budgetary planning. A reprimand to any of their own MPs supporting one was probably in order but need only have been a few weeks’ suspension.
But their big failure was not making it crystal clear that the two child policy makes victims of children and was something that would be a priority for review as part of wider plans for benefits and revenue-raising in the autumn. Even if they didn’t promise its abolition, and it wouldn’t have hurt them to do so.
A chart from the Whip would have been enough because Labour have made themselves look mean bullies by acting as they did
It’s going to be a very long five years at this rate
Shouldn’t the benefit cap issue also framed as a feminist one related to women’s equality and dignity? A mum of 5 interviewed on Radio 4 last night was talking about the number of women who don’t choose to have more than 2 children but the end up in situations where they do and love and want to do the best for their kids. They then struggle with the indignity of not being able to. The woman interviewed said her 20 year old would be able to help when she finishes university. So with the right support kids number 3 etc could play an important role in our society where low fertility rate is becoming an issue? Good thing about the Tories being out is that important issues other than boats are being discussed on Newsnight etc. Last night it was domestic abuse. Seems strange these are not linked or have eligibility criteria for the cap changed, I believe if abused women have left the abuser they qualify but many can’t because they are financially trapped! https://england.shelter.org.uk/professional_resources/policy_and_research/policy_library/joint_briefing_with_womens_aid_the_benefit_cap_and_domestic_abuse_#:~:text=The%20benefit%20cap%20is%20creating%20a%20desperate%20situation,impacts%20of%20the%20cap%20on%20poverty%20and%20homelessness?
Good point
In PMQs today the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer twice criticised the SNP for using questions objecting to the failure to scrap the two—child cap; because in Scotland he claims there has been an increase of 30,000 children in poverty.
This is a species argument. Starmer knows very well that child poverty is driven primarily by reserved area powers, and Westminster spending decisions. The Scottish Budget of £60Bn (2023-4) rests on two fundamental principles:
1) The Budget is fixed. The Scottish government borrowing power is negligible, and strictly limited.
2) The Scottish Budget is provided by Westminster to deliver specified devolved services. It is not set to service reserved areas of need.
This means the Scottish Government can only mitigate unendurable problems suffered on reserved areas by robbing the devolved areas of money intended for devolved areas. This, to a degree the Scottish Government has done, totalling £140m (according to Stephen Gethins MP today); but which we know includes £70m allocated to mitigate the effects of the reserved power ‘bedroom tax’.
Assuming the £3Bn cost of scrapping the two-child cap is accurate, this means the Scottish government would require to allocate (on a population share assumption) around at least a further £260m from the fixed Scottish Budget to secure it for one year (and recurring – for future Budgets they have no hand in determining). Fixed means fixed; the Scottish government cannot do what every British government routinely does; run up a deficit, whatever happens, whatever the claim or say; because no British government can afford not to do so, if faced with a deficit: and deficits are the norm – that is an incontrovertible fact.
This mitigation of Westminster’s punishing policy by Holyrood is a costly and high risk enterprise, albeit a worthy one (which I doubt the electorate understands, and something that the journalists, and notably the BBC journalists seem obtusely to refuse to understand, or do not want to understand). A total £400m, open-ended commitment to scrapping the two-child cap in Holyrood (they really couldn’t abandon it next year), now approaching 1% of the total fixed Budget, just to mitigate Westminster abuse of the system is not a viable instrument of Government. It is perverse that mainstream opinion tries to make the optics of this absurdity look credible.
For Labour to scrap the two-child cap scarcely registers as a material cost. There are 4.3m children (2023) who fall into the definition of living in childhood poverty (House of Lords Library). The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) estimates this represents 30% of all our children in Britain, and their research (from DWP stats) shows children are now more likely to be in poverty than adults or pensioners, by some margin. They also claim “deep” levels of poverty are now worse; with 43% of families with three or more children in poverty. They also note that child poverty rates are worst in England (31%), with 28% in Wales, and 24% in Scotland and 22% in NI. JRF accounts for the better Scottish performance in this way: “This is likely to be due, at least in part, to the Scottish Child Payment. This highlights the effect benefits can have in reducing poverty.”
The Scottish Child Payment devised by the Scottish Government is a weekly payment of £26.70 (paid every four weeks) for every child the responsible person looks after. The Child Payment does not affect any other UK or Scottish Government benefits being received.
It is therefore, a little rich for Starmer to accuse the Scottish Government of allowing 30,000 more children to fall into poverty in Scotland (he doesn’t provide the timeline); after fourteen years of pernicious austerity, the scale of the problem is very, very high and now endemic. He has some explaining to do.
Thanks, and agreed
Agreed.
I saw Starmer’s response to the SNP last night on C4 News.
I thought ‘How Tory of you Keir’ but also ‘How English’.
Change?
What’s changed?
It was cheap and dishonest ‘politics’.
As per usual………………………….
This morning, an angry former US and (later) UK government official reminded how bad Starmer is. It’s the anniversary of the murder of Jean-Charles de Menezes. Starmer facilitated the cover up. That reminded me of another one, going back to an arson on the home of a black family in 1981. Older and London based readers may remember that 1981 attack. One reason for the cover up of the murder is that Israeli security personnel were seconded to the Met and put on patrol. This arrangement was formalised by Patel as Home Secretary and Wallace as Defence Secretary. Funding for “Shomrim” was also provided for by the Home Office.
Harold Wilson once said that the Labour Party ‘is a moral crusade or it is nothing’. Are we to assume that it is now nothing?
Yes
MSM: “Starmer is soo strong…”
He is strong against the weak – here a small group of leftwing MPs and, far more importantly, 1.6 million hungry children
He is reliably WEAK against the powerful, like Murdoch, the other press barons, the billionaires, USA and Netanyahu
“The prime minister and his cabinet say the state of the public finances means they cannot afford to abolish the benefit limit without economic growth.”
Apparently we can’t afford it
https://www.itv.com/news/2024-07-23/labour-suspends-seven-rebel-mps-who-voted-to-scrap-two-child-benefit-cap
Lose the whip or kiss the whip.
Is that a difficult choice?
They have a massive majority. Starmer enters #10 with a significant number of doubters as to his labour-party credentials. Best and worst ways to deal with this:
Best: say you hear the message and you will prioritise this issue. No need to take any action on 7 ‘rebels’. Storm in a teacup, over before it started.
Worst: exactly what this carpetbagger has done.