Any lingering pretence that Labour’s electoral victory represented in any way progress for the working class was comprehensively stripped away on 23 July as 361 Labour MPs lined up to vote against an SNP amendment demanding the new government abolish the two-child limit on benefits. Such a measure would immediately lift 300,000 children out of poverty and a further 700,000 out of extreme poverty. That Labour has resisted mounting pressure from campaigners, charities and opposition parties to scrap this obscene measure tells you everything you ever need to know about the party. Never forget that when push came to shove, Labour chose ‘fiscal responsibility’ over feeding hungry children. The annual cost of scrapping the limit is estimated at £1.7bn, eventually rising to £3.4bn a year – more or less what Keir Starmer has promised Ukrainian President Zelensky annually for ‘as long as it takes’ to fight NATO’s proxy war against Russia. Seven ‘left’ Labour MPs who did defy the whip and support the SNP amendment were immediately suspended for six months. It was a clear signal from this most reactionary of governments that it will be utterly ruthless in defending ruling class interests – and equally ruthless in clamping down on even the smallest show of dissent.
Introduced in 2017, the two-child limit prohibits families from claiming benefits for third or subsequent children born after 5 April 2017. It is the biggest single driver of child poverty in Britain today. According to government statistics released in July, a record 1.6 million children live in families directly affected by the limit. That number is expected to increase by nearly 700,000 by the end of this parliament. It robs impoverished families of £3,455 per year for each ‘additional’ child. That is £66 a week – the difference between having three meals a day and missing meals every day. The impact is stark. Children in families with three or more children who live in poverty increased from 36% in 2011/12 to 46% in 2022/23. Overall 4.3 million children were living in poverty in 2022/3, which is 30% of all children and 100,000 more than the previous year. But Labour has only contempt for those dependent on benefits. Any benefits of the ‘economic growth’ it promises are reserved strictly for the ruling class.
The two-child limit may be the most savage benefit cut to have been concocted over the last 14 years by the previous Tory government but there are many others on which Labour remains equally silent. The overall benefit cap limits the total amount of benefits any household can receive, particularly impacting families with children and trapping more and more people as housing costs continue to soar. Research by the Child Poverty Action Group has shown that families affected by the policy can be left with as little as £44 per week to live on once they’ve paid housing costs. The Bedroom Tax slashes the housing benefit paid to those living in social housing if they are deemed to have a ‘spare’ room; it has driven hundreds of thousands of people into poverty and rent arrears since it was introduced in 2013. Recent figures from the Institute for Fiscal Policy show clearly that Britain’s 7.6 million households with children have been hardest hit by the raft of attacks on benefits since 2010, losing an average £5,500 per year. Just like the Conservatives before them, Labour treats benefit claimants as an undeserving burden on the state who must be forced into whatever poorly paid jobs are available. As Liz Kendall, the new Work and Pensions Secretary, stated earlier this year, ‘If you can work, there will be no option of a life on benefits under a Labour government.’
The vote on 23 July and subsequent suspensions made it clear you cannot be a Labour MP and at the same time offer any meaningful opposition to child poverty. Where were the dozens of Labour MPs who had vowed to fight tooth and nail to oppose the two-child limit when it came to the tricky business of converting their words into deeds? Lining up to vote with the government for the most part, that’s where. Labour MP Kim Johnson had earlier put forward an amendment to the King’s Speech calling for the two-child limit to be scrapped, which was signed by 20 Labour MPs. It never came to a vote, but a week later barely any of the 20 signatories defied the whip to support the SNP amendment. Five voted against and nine either abstained or were discreetly absent. One of them was Labour MP Ian Lavery, who had stated just days before: ‘I was proud to put my name to Kim Johnson’s amendment! I will put country before party when it comes to lifting 300,000 of our poorest children out of poverty.’ Kim Johnson herself took to X to declare proudly that she had ‘voted with the government for unity’ – although the record shows that she didn’t actually vote at all.
Meanwhile, the seven suspended MPs may portray themselves as having acted on principle, but what are those principles worth if they now remain in this vicious, anti-working class party? The vote on abolishing the two-child limit should have been a red line for any politician who professed to care about child poverty. Instead, John McDonnell wrote an opinion piece in The Guardian the day after the vote, defending the Labour Party’s history and praising the fact that under pressure, the government had promised a taskforce to review the cap. These people are all self-serving cowards and careerists with nothing to offer the working class. If we want to fight poverty and defend the working class, then we will have to do it ourselves.
Mark Moncada
