THE government faces its first major challenge on Wednesday when MPs demand it abolishes the Tories’ reviled two-child benefits cap.
SNP MPs at Westminster have urged their Scottish Labour counterparts to join the rebellion.
Parliament reopens on Wednesday with Labour’s policies outlined in the King’s Speech.
Opponents of the benefits cap say the policy has cast 1.6 million children into desperate poverty.
Labour MP Kim Johnson will propose an amendment to the speech calling for the cap to be abolished.
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn will also now propose an amendment calling for its abolition.
Mr Flynn said: “The two-child cap is pushing thousands of Scottish children into poverty — and scrapping it is the bare minimum the Labour Party government must do if it is serious about tackling poverty.
“I urge Keir Starmer to include it in his programme for government this week but, if he fails, the SNP will lay an amendment to abolish it immediately.
“It is shameful and it must go now.”
Mr Flynn has also written to Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar urging him to instruct Scottish Labour MPs to support the rebellion.
In the letter Mr Flynn said it would be “simple” for the government to scrap the cap “immediately” but added this was “a political choice and it requires politicians, across parties, to demand better.”
The Resolution Foundation has said that abolishing the two-child limit would cost the government somewhere between £2.5 billion and £3.6bn in 2024/25, but that such costs are “low compared to the harm that the policy causes.”
Figures published last week by the Department for Work and Pensions showed there were 1.6 million children living in households affected by the cap in April this year, up from 1.5 million to April 2023.
Of these, 52 per cent of children were in households with three children, 29 per cent in households with four children, and 19 per cent in households with five or more children.
Mr Sarwar’s office was invited to comment.
Last month, before becoming Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer said he would scrap the two-child limit “in an ideal world” but added that “we haven’t got the resources to do it at the moment.”
