Sir Keir Starmer faces the threat of an immediate mutiny from his own MPs challenging him over the Government’s stance on child benefits and arms sales to Israel.
The new Labour Government set out its legislative agenda with a King’s Speech promising to “make people better off”.
But the Prime Minister faced pushback from his backbenchers for not being more radical in some policy areas, including the controversial cap on two-child benefits.
MPs are planning to table amendments to the King’s Speech on scrapping the two-child benefit limit – something the Prime Minister said he would like to reverse but cannot yet afford to.
The limit was implemented by the Conservative government in 2017 and prevents families claiming the child element of universal credit or tax credit for more than two children.
Kim Johnson, MP for Liverpool Riverside, will lay her amendment calling for the cap to be removed with support from others on the left of the party, including Zarah Sultana and John McDonnell.
The Scottish National Party has also said it intends to table an amendment calling for the same.
Sultana is putting forward her own separate amendment to the speech, which could create a headache for Starmer in another challenging policy area: the conflict between Israel and Gaza.
The MP is urging the Government to ban arms sales to Israel in light of the conflict in Gaza and highlighting similar actions taken by previous UK governments and other countries.
Separately, Labour backbenchers Richard Burgon and Imran Hussain laid a motion to drop a legal challenge made by the previous government to prevent the International Criminal Court (ICC) issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The amendments to the King’s Speech will appear on Thursday’s Order Paper and up to four will be selected for a vote next week by the Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle.
During his King’s Speech address, Starmer was immediately challenged on child poverty by backbencher Sarah Owen, who asked for “assurances” that the Prime Minister “personally takes this issue very seriously and that this Government will address it”.
The Prime Minister said he took child poverty “extremely seriously”.
“I am proud of the record of the last Labour government in reducing child poverty. It clearly had a strategy and we will have a strategy and I am very pleased to have announced today the taskforce who will lead our start to reduce child poverty,” he said.
The Prime Minister said “no decisive action has been taken to address the root causes of poverty”, which he described as “completely unacceptable”.
And he said his Government would prioritise this through the launch of the new taskforce, announced on Wednesday.
No 10 said Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall and Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson would lead the group set up to counter the rise in the number of children growing up in deprivation.
The announcement did not specifically reference welfare, or the two-child benefit cap, but the timing of the announcement was considered to be an attempt by the Government to get ahead of the potential vote.
According to the Government, child poverty has gone up by 700,000 since 2010, with more than four million children now growing up in a low-income family.
The new unit, based in the Cabinet Office, will combine experts and officials and will begin the Government’s work to address the causes of child poverty.
No 10 said it would look at “how we can use levers related to household income as well as employment, housing, children’s health, childcare and education to improve children’s experiences and chances at life”.
It comes after Kendall met with child poverty organisations and charities on Wednesday morning.
“Developing an ambitious strategy to tackle the problem is vital and urgent work which starts today,” she said.
“We will turn the tide on rising poverty levels, so every child, no matter where they come from, has the best start in life.”
Opposition parties have indicated they could support an amendment forcing the Government’s hand over the issue of the two-child limit.
But, without a significant rebellion from Labour MPs, the Government is unlikely to lose a vote.
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said Starmer had “failed his first test in government” by not dealing with “major challenges facing the UK”.
Green Party MP and co-leader Adrian Ramsay said Labour had “fallen short of the urgent transformative programme we need” and said the “cruel” two-child benefit cap must be scrapped.
Liberal Democrat Work and Pensions spokesperson Wendy Chamberlain said: “Scrapping the two-child cap would be the quickest and most cost-effective way to lift children out of poverty and bring long-term benefits to our society and economy.”