Starmer faces PMQs grilling after rebellion over two-child benefit cap

MP Kim Johnson said the strength of opposition among MPs to the measure was ‘undeniable’.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer faces his first PMQs since the election on Wednesday (Carl Court/PA) (PA Wire)

Sir Keir Starmer faces a Commons grilling in his first Prime Minister’s Questions amid backbench unease over a vote on the two-child benefit cap that saw him suspend seven Labour MPs.

The PM will be quizzed from the Government benches by MPs for the first time since entering Number 10 after stripping Labour rebels of the whip for backing an SNP motion to scrap the welfare measure.

Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, ex-business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey, Apsana Begum, Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne, Imran Hussain and Zarah Sultana have been suspended from the parliamentary party.

Mr Burgon expressed his disappointment at the move while Ms Sultana said abolishing the cap would lift 330,000 children out of poverty and stood by her decision to support the SNP-led amendment.

Although the rebellion was small and the motion comfortably defeated by Government, opposition to the cap within Labour is not limited to the seven who lost the whip.

Liverpool Riverside MP Kim Johnson said she had voted with the Government “for unity” but warned that the strength of feeling within the party was “undeniable”.

“We moved the dial, the campaign will continue,” she said.

Canterbury Labour MP Rosie Duffield has expressed support for scrapping the cap but said she could not attend Parliament on Tuesday because she had contracted Covid-19.

The House of Commons voted 363 to 103, majority 260, to reject the amendment tabled in the name of SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn.

The cap, introduced in 2015 by then-Conservative chancellor George Osborne, restricts child welfare payments to the first two children born to most families.

More than 40 Labour MPs recorded no vote, with some of those listed spotted in the chamber throughout the day, while others will have had permission to miss the vote.

The decision to remove the whip from the seven who defied the Government over the amendment is an early show of ruthlessness from the new administration, and sends a message that dissent will not be taken lightly.

Ahead of the vote, Sir Keir had said there is “no silver bullet” to end child poverty but acknowledged the “passion” of MPs who were considering opposing the continuation of the Tory measure.

Mr Flynn said Labour had “failed its first major test in Government” by choosing not to “deliver meaningful change from years of Tory misrule”.

“This is now the Labour government’s two-child cap – and it must take ownership of the damage it is causing, including the appalling levels of poverty in the UK,” he said.