Seven Labour MPs have had the whip suspended for six months after voting against the government on an amendment to scrap the two-child benefit cap. Ex-shadow chancellor John McDonnell was among the Labour MPs who voted for an SNP motion calling for an end to the policy, which prevents almost all parents from claiming Universal Credit or child tax credit for more than two children.
Mr McDonnell backed the SNP motion alongside Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Imran Hussain, Apsana Begum and Zarah Sultana. MPs rejected the SNP amendment by 363 votes to 103, in the first major test of the new Labour government’s authority.
Losing the whip means the MPs are suspended from the parliamentary party and will now sit as independent MPs. Nearly all of the rebels were allies of the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who now sits as an independent MP and put his name to the SNP motion.
Ms Sultana told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme she had not been informed she would lose the whip if she voted for the amendment. However, she said this would not have changed her decision. The MP for Coventry South rejected the argument there was not the money to fund scrapping the cap, saying measures such as a wealth tax could be introduced.
“This is about political will,” she added. Mr Burgon said he was “disappointed” by the decision to suspend him, explaining that “many struggling families” in his Leeds East constituency had raised the cap with him. Ms Begum said she had voted against the cap because it had “contributed to rising and deepening levels of child poverty and food insecurity for many East End families”.
Mr Byrne, meanwhile, said the “best way” to help his Liverpool West Derby constituents living in poverty was to scrap the cap. Before the vote, Mr McDonnell said: “I don’t like voting for other parties’ amendments, but I’m following Keir Starmer’s example as he said put country before party.
Source: BBC
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