ON MONDAY night I joined 47 of my colleagues in opposing the government’s Welfare Reform and Work Bill and in doing so, became part of the biggest Labour rebellion against the party line in a decade. The party tabled a reasoned amendment which was defeated and advised abstaining on the second reading with the promise of “pulling the Bill apart” at committee stage.

Throughout my working life I have always sought to stand up for the poor and vulnerable and since entering Parliament I have tried to follow that path. I did not come here to make the poor poorer, to make the sick more vulnerable, push more children into poverty or to restrict family size. This Bill does all of that and no reassurance could have stopped me from opposing it. My solidarity in this case is with the families and individuals who this Bill will desperately affect.

This is a Bill which will push even greater numbers of children into poverty and, not content with doing so, will abolish the reduction targets set out in Labour’s Child Poverty Act 2010 and remove the duty upon the Secretary of State to meet them. This is the abhorrent politics of those who simply do not give a damn about the 50 per cent of children living in poverty in wards in my constituency.