Labour’s Stella Creasy, who has been an MP for 15 years, called on the PM to scrap the two-child benefit policy as it would take ‘350,000 children out of poverty overnight’
A senior Labour MP has called for the two-child benefit limit to be scrapped as she told Keir Starmer tackling poverty is in Labour’s “DNA”.
Stella Creasy, who has been an MP for 15 years, said removing the policy would take “350,000 children out of poverty overnight”. She said struggling families needed a “triple lock”, a policy which sees state pension rates go up each year by the rate of inflation, average earnings or 2.5% – whichever is highest.
She is the latest Labour MP to mount pressure over the two-child limit, a policy introduced by by ex-Chancellor George Osborne in 2017 which restricts parents from claiming Universal Credit or Child Tax Credits for any children beyond their first two. It was reported over the weekend that the PM has told cabinet ministers that he wants to scrap the benefits limit and has asked the Treasury to find ways to fund the plan.
It comes after Mr Starmer announced a U-turn on cuts to winter fuel payments. The PM said he wants more pensioners to be eligible for the policy.
READ MORE: Angela Rayner refuses to guarantee more pensioners will receive fuel payments this winter
Ms Creasy, the MP for Walthamstow, told BBC Radio 4 she “absolutely” thought the two-child limit should be removed. She said: “My focus is poverty, because I think it is in our DNA as the Labour movement to try to end that because of the benefits to everybody when we do. I’m really focused on what we can actually do to help those families.
“I think we need a triple lock for families too. It’s worth remembering we’ve spent 1% of our social security budget on children, we spent 60% of it on pensioners. That is not to distract from the fact that there are pensioners who are living in poverty, and we absolutely need to tackle that. The point is, when we invest in those families, I think it pays off.”
Ms Creasy, who was not among the seven Labour MPs to rebel and vote for the policy to be ditched just after the election, said it was “worth reflecting” that 60% of kids who could be pulled out of poverty if the policy was scrapped are in households where somebody is in work. She said the child poverty strategy, which has been delayed until the autumn, must find “a way of helping every family make ends meet”.
“I am painfully aware of how many people in my local community still have too much month at the end of their money,” she added.
The MP also pointed to recent analysis that found every pound invested in Sure Start centres returned £2 in savings. The early years services were championed by the last Labour government but were dismantled by the Tories when they came to power in 2010.
She added: “It’s the child poverty strategy that is the real prize here, because poverty is really bad for growth, especially when you don’t have the money in your pocket on some of the lowest incomes. So actually, everything we can do to tackle poverty pays for itself in the long run.
“I do think what we really need to focus on is how do we tackle that endemic poverty that we’ve seen, particularly with wages, particularly with housing costs. When I talk about people in my community with too much month at the end of their money, it is housing, it is child care that is really draining their finances. So I don’t see this as a trade off.
“I see this about how we invest to save, and the numbers are there to do it. Because actually, over the longer term, if you tackle that poverty, if we lift those families out of the destitution that they’re currently facing, it will pay off for all of us.”
Elsewhere Mr Starmer has been facing mounting pressure over the Government’s benefits cuts. It emerged this morning that disability benefit claimants could get more time to seek support before Labour’s cuts are implemented.
The PM is said to be considering “tweaks” to welfare cuts planned by his Government. Benefit claimants could be given longer “transitional periods” to seek out other benefits if they lose out as a result of the reforms, according to the Times.
More than 100 backbench MPs are said to be thinking about rebelling over the planned benefits cuts, which would tighten eligibility for the personal independence payment (PIP). DWP Secretary Liz Kendall announced the changes as part of plans to cut the welfare bill by £5billion and get more working age people currently on benefits into employment.
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