SNP attacks Keir Starmer for suspending MPs over two-child cap at first PMQs

The SNP has attacked Prime Minister Keir Starmer for suspending seven Labour MPs for voting against the government on abolishing to two-child cap at the first PMQs of the new parliament.

The party’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said MPs had been “instructed” to vote to retain a policy that “forces children into poverty”.

And deputy leader Pete Wishart said the prime minister had punished MPs for “standing up” for children in poverty.

Starmer said his government was pursuing an anti-poverty strategy with “vigour” and pointed to a newly convened taskforce on the issue.

The whip was last night withdrawn from the seven Labour MPs who voted in favour of Flynn’s amendment at the end of the debate on the King’s Speech.

That amendment called on the government to scrap the cap which limits the receipt of some benefits to the first two children in a family, but it fell with just 103 MPs voting for it.

Of the 37 Scottish Labour MPs, 36 voted with the government. One – Katrina Murray – did not vote.

Speaking at the first PMQs since the general election, Flynn said: “Just five days before the general election in Scotland, on the front page of the Daily Record, [former Labour prime minister] Gordon Brown instructed voters to vote Labour to end child poverty.

“Yet last night, Labour MPs from Scotland were instructed to retain the two-child cap which forces children into poverty. So prime minister, what changed?”

Wishart added that Starmer has faced a “significant rebellion” and that poverty campaigners were “furious” with the UK Government for not ending the cap.

The prime minister said a new child poverty taskforce would look to tackle the problem, while the government had already moved to set up free breakfast clubs, abolish no-fault evictions and set out new standards for good quality homes.

He also criticised the Scottish Government for its record on poverty, saying: “Before he lectures everyone else, he should explain why since the SNP came to power there are 30,000 more children in poverty in Scotland.”