SCOTTISH Labour leader Anas Sarwar has been urged to “be clear with voters” on his role in the UK party’s decision to keep the two-child benefits cap, including clarifying whether he was consulted over the policy stance.
The call from the SNP came after Sir Keir Starmer yesterday said Labour would not be changing their policy on keeping the cap in place – despite a major backlash within his own party on the stance which is at odds with a previous pledge.
On a visit to Shefford in the Mid Bedfordshire constituency, Starmer said: “There is no doubt that we need to deal with child poverty. That is what the last Labour government did.
“But we have to accept that the conditions in which we will come into government, if we are privileged enough to do so, will be conditions for a broken economy, broken public services.
“And that is why I’ve been absolutely clear that we won’t have any unfunded spending commitments, so we proceed on that basis.
“And that is why we’re not going to change our policy on the two-child benefit cap.
“But we have to recognise that that is as a result of the damage that the Tories have done to our economy. Secure economics, responsibly economics absolutely come first.”
Scottish Labour MSPs Monica Lennon and Mercedes Villalba are among those who have criticised the move, while Sarwar said he would “press” the UK leader to commit to scrapping the cap if he wins the next General Election.
But SNP MSP Bob Doris has called on Sarwar to “be clear with voters” and say if he was consulted on the policy shift before the announcement by Starmer.
He said: “The two-child cap, introduced by the Tories and now supported by Labour, is directly responsible for pushing thousands of children in Scotland into poverty.
“In Scotland, the SNP Government has taken 90,000 children out of poverty thanks to progressive policies like the Scottish Child Payment – but Westminster parties are holding back our progress.”
Doris added: “The important question for Sarwar is: was he consulted beforehand by Keir Starmer and part of the decision-making team which approved this policy change, or did he find out about his party’s new stance last weekend like the rest of us?
“Families across Scotland are suffering like never before as a direct result of decisions taken at Westminster.
“Voters need to know where policy decisions that will affect thousands of children and struggling families in Scotland into poverty are taken.”
Meanwhile, Starmer said that while Labour’s by-election win in Selby and Ainsty last week should give the party “every reason to be confident” ahead of a General Election, the Uxbridge and South Ruislip result demonstrated that there “is still a long way to go”.
He pinned the blame for Labour’s loss there on London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s plans for expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) in the city.
Addressing Labour’s national policy forum in Nottingham, he said: “That result in Uxbridge demonstrates there is never any reason to be complacent and never a reason to rest on our laurels.
“It is a reminder that in an election, policy matters.
“We are doing something very wrong if policies put forward by the Labour Party end up on each and every Tory leaflet.
“We’ve got to face up to that and to learn the lesson.”
But one political analyst told the Sunday National the results of the by-elections last week weren’t “terribly good news” for any of the three parties who won the seats.
Rishi Sunak suffered a bruising defeat in two out of three of the Tory seats last Thursday, managing only to cling to Boris Johnson’s former constituency in Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
Dr Alia Middleton, senior lecturer in politics at the University of Surrey, said Labour’s failure to win that seat should be a concern for the party.
Starmer’s party did overturn a 20,000 Tory majority to win the Selby and Ainsty by-election, while the LibDems claimed the third seat, in Somerton and Frome.
Middleton said: “I don’t necessarily think it is terribly good for any of the parties.
“The Liberal Democrats do always do well in by-elections, that is just the habitual activity, as they have got a really good on-the-ground concerted effort.
“But when you are talking about a General Election, when they have got to spread that across multiple seats, it is not like all of a sudden they will have 100 MPs.
“They can be satisfied for the moment, but they very carefully need to target their resources next time round.”
She said while Sunak had been congratulating his supporters in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, the loss of Selby and Ainsty – a safe Conservative seat “right on his doorstep” – was “pretty sticky”.
And Middleton said it would have been a better night for Labour if they had won Uxbridge and South Ruislip, with the Ulez policy having the potential to bring more difficulties for the party.
“It could be a convenient scapegoat for other potential deficiencies, whether that is Starmer not quite having the cut through with voters that Labour might necessarily want,” she said.
“But I do think in terms of a policy, how voters are receiving it has been very problematic. If you are thinking about Labour seeking to win a majority at the next election, Labour have been very, very strong in London over the past few elections, they have really kind of dominated London.
“If I was working for Labour, it would really concern me that that is potentially going to threaten some of their seats.
“But it depends on the mayoral election [in 2024] – if Khan is no longer the mayor it might actually give Labour a bit of a reprieve as it were.”
Middleton said the overall voting patterns across the three by-elections were “on a par” with current polls, with the Conservatives around 21 points down – although she added the results were less informative about how opposition parties were faring.
She added: “Nothing that I have seen [from the by-election results] tells me that the Conservatives are going to do anything apart from lose the next election.”
