LABOUR risks being dragged to the left after Lucy Powell demanded the two-child benefit cap be scrapped – despite the £3.5billion-a-year price tag.
The deputy leadership contender blasted her own party’s “unforced errors,” warning they had left voters feeling Labour was not “on the side of ordinary people.”
Deputy leadership contender Lucy Powell
Ms Powell, booted from Cabinet in Sir Keir Starmer’s reshuffle, told the BBC: “Some of the mistakes that we’ve made, or some of the unforced errors, have given a sense that we’re not on the side of ordinary people.”
She insisted she doesn’t want back into government, but instead to be a “conduit” between the leadership and MPs.
And she used her new freedom outside Cabinet to call for the two-child cap to be axed.
Acknowledging that abolishing the cap may not be achievable immediately, she said the Government should still be “working towards” it as “the single biggest policy we could do to address child poverty”.
Her comments put pressure on Chancellor , who is with stubbornly high inflation and weak growth.
Inflation is at 3.8 per cent – nearly double the 2 per cent target Ms Reeves inherited.
The OBR, OECD and have all slashed their UK growth forecasts this year, heaping further strain on her economic credibility.
Scrapping the two-child limit would add £3.5billion a year to welfare spending by 2029–30, according to the Resolution Foundation.
The Tories leapt on Ms Powell’s pledge as proof Labour was veering back into fiscal recklessness.
Tory Party chairman Hollinrake said Ms Powell’s comments on the two-child benefit cap showed the deputy leadership contest had “descended into a race to the bottom for unlimited welfare spending”.
He said: “Be in no doubt, Labour is the party of fiscal irresponsibility. Only the Conservatives will stop this irresponsible behaviour and the higher taxes that come with it.”
Ms Powell faces Education Secretary in the battle to replace Angela Rayner as deputy.
She trailed Phillipson in MP nominations, but polling suggests she has a lead among Labour members.
