The two-child benefit cap row is Starmer’s first big test

Can Keir Starmer hold the line on backing the two-child benefit cap? The row about the policy, introduced by the Conservatives and vociferously opposed by most people in the Labour party, is going to be a significant problem for the Prime Minister, even in his honeymoon period. The King’s Speech this week is unlikely to contain a surprise commitment to scrapping the policy, with Starmer and his Chancellor Rachel Reeves still saying that it is not yet affordable. Both say they want to get rid of it when the public finances allow, but that is not good enough for many of their MPs. 

There has already been pressure on Labour backbenchers from the SNP, which had been threatening an amendment to the King’s Speech calling for the cap to be scrapped. But now Labour backbencher Kim Johnson says she is planning to table her own amendment, and has also circulated an early-day motion around colleagues asking for their support. Neither can be tabled until parliament is sitting again, which will be once the King has delivered the speech on Wednesday.

A number of Labour MPs are also planning to speak on the cap in the debate following the Speech, which goes on for several days. Johnson wants the call for the cap to go to come from within the Labour party, rather than from opposition parties. It is also a smart bit of politics from the Labour backbencher. It will be much easier for Labour MPs, especially those in Scotland, to dismiss the SNP’s amendment as a ‘stunt’, but they will find it harder to argue against a motion from one of their own colleagues.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has also said that in his renewed calls for the cap to go, ‘I honestly believe we are pushing at an open door’. Gordon Brown has also been arguing against it, though he has previously said that he was focusing on the Autumn Statement as the most likely vehicle for scrapping the limit. With the Greens and Liberal Democrats also pushing on this issue, it is going to be an extremely uncomfortable argument for the government to sustain for a long time: it may well be that figures including Sarwar and would-be rebel MPs are given an indication of how open the door is and how soon the cap might go, just to try to quell the revolt.