Shadow minister plays down claims Labour split over two-child benefit cap – UK politics live | Politics

The SNP has accused the Scottish Labour party of trying to face both ways at the same time on the two-child benefit cap.

Yesterday Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, said that he was opposed to the policy, and wanted to see the cap removed as quickly as possible, but that he acceped that Keir Starmer could not afford to do everything he wanted to immediately. Lucy Powell, the shadow culture secretary, made a similar argument this morning (see 10.21am), insisting the two positions were not inconsistent.

But Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s leader at Westminster, told the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland:

Anas Sarwar appears to be rubbing some Brasso on his neck this morning, because he is trying to con the people of Scotland into believing he is against the policy when just yesterday on the television he was saying he backs Keir Starmer’s position.

The reality is that London Labour have given a diktat to the Scottish Labour leader that he needs to support their ridiculous and heinous position in relation to this policy and Anas Sarwar has followed suit.

Asked if he was saying that Sarwar was not being sincere when he said he opposed the cap, Flynn said there was a “big difference” between campaigning against something and getting rid of it while in power.

One of the curiosities of political journalism is that, when a politician says something blindingly obvious, it can sometimes count as news. Andrew Bowie, an energy minister, was in that category this morning when he was asked on Times Radio about the three byelection on Thursday, where the Conservative party is defending majorities of 20,137 (Selby and Ainsty), 19,213 (Somerton and Frome) and 7,210 (Uxbridge and South Ruislip).

“Of course it’s possible we could lose all three,” Bowie said.

But he went on:

But it’s also possible that we might win all three. I’m an optimist, I’m a Scottish Conservative and Scotland football fan – I have to be an optimist.

At Westminster the general assumption is that the Conservatives will lose all three seats – and that the chances of them winning all three are about as slim as the chances of Scotland winning the next World Cup.

Lucy Powell, the shadow culture secretary, has played down claims that Labour is split over whether or not to reverse the two-child benefit cap.

In an interview with Sky News this morning, she claimed that there was no contradiction between viewing the policy as a bad one, and accepting it would have to stay until money could be found to reverse it.

She even defended the position by saying “there is no money left” – a line used in a joke note left by a Labour Treasury minister for his successor in 2010 which has been used endlessly by the Tories ever since as supposed proof of Labour’s economic irresponsibility.

Keir Starmer triggered a row on this issue on Sunday when he suggested the party was committed to keeping the two-child benefit cap – a policy which has been widely criticised for forcing families into poverty, while failing to have the behavioural impact ministers expected when it was introduced.

Starmer’s comments caused alarm within his party because he went further than other shadow ministers, like Rachel Reeves, who have left open the possibility that a Labour government might abolish the cap.

Explaining Labour’s position, Powell told Sky News:

We’ve opposed this policy, this is not a good policy. We’ve opposed it for many years through parliament, but we’re now in a very different economic situation.

As a famous phrase would go, there is no money left, the government has absolutely tanked the economy.

I don’t know it is dividing the shadow cabinet.

When it was put to her that Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow work and pensions secretary, has described the cap as “heinous”, she replied:

Both can be true at the same time, that things can be a bad policy, they can be bad politics, but the economic reality is what we’re now faced with.

There are lots of bad policies … we’re not implementing them, it’s about not reversing [them].

A barge that will be used to house 500 asylum seekers has belatedly arrived at Portland, Dorset, after voting in the House of Lords paved the way for the government’s illegal migration bill to become law, Ben Quinn reports.

Good morning. Shortly after midnight the government won the last of five votes in the House of Lords on the illegal migration bill, meaning the amendments to the bill passed by peers last week have been reversed, the bill is now broadly as the government wants it (it accepted some concessions in the early phase of ‘ping pong’) and it is now due to get royal assent, possibly very soon. The full story is here.

Officially, the Lords did not back down. There were five divisions last night, and the government won all of them.

But at least one vote was pulled, after Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, decided not to put his amendment, saying the government should produce an international strategy for tackling migration, to a vote.

And some of the peers who voted against the government on this bill in earlier divisions were not in the voting lobbies last night. In votes on this bill earlier this month there were up to 235 peers voting against the government. Last night the anti-goverment vote was never higher than 200, and the Tories won with a higher-than-usual turnout of Tory peers although their majority was only seven on one vote. The opposition went down fighting, but the numbers imply they weren’t trying as hard as in the past – which is normal in a chamber where it is accepted that ultimately the elected house has to have its way.

All this is very good news for the Home Office. But there was less good news for them on the Today programme this morning when Sir Mark Rowley, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, gave them a kicking over their failure to change rules that make it very hard for him to sack rogue officers.

Rowley has been complaining about this every since his appointment. Here is a story from November last year, and in January he went futher, saying the regulations were “crazy”. Ministers said they would do something about this. But still nothing has happened, and Rowley said he was “frustrated” about the lack of action. He said:

The government announced a review that was, I think, due to report in May to look at police regulations and making the sort of changes I’d asked for. We haven’t yet heard the results of that review, and I’m frustrated. I need those changes in regulations to help me get on with them because some of the processes are too long, too bureaucratic.

And some of the decisions are made outside the Met. So people we’ve decided shouldn’t be police officers – an independent lawyer says, ‘Well, bad luck, you’ve got to keep them.’

That can’t be right. No other employer that has to deal with that. If I’m trying to get the minority out the organisation, whilst helping the majority of my people succeed, it’s not helpful to have useless, slow bureaucratic processes.

Asked why the government was taking so long to respond, Rowley replied:

I don’t know. There are legal technicalities and I’m sure there’s lots of reasons for them to work through. But I’m in a man in a hurry. We’re an organisation in a hurry to build the trust of Londoners and I’d like that support as quickly as possible.

Rowley also claimed that leaders in other organisations did not face the same constraints.

Why are we pretty much the only organisation where the leaders aren’t able to decide whether people stay in the organisation or no ….

You’re robustly challenging me on the culture of the Met and our ability to build trust in communities. It seems a little perverse, doesn’t it, that I don’t get to decide who works here. That’s a bit weird, and I don’t think anybody else works in an organisation where that’s the case.

Rowley was being interviewed because today the Met is announcing its New Met for London plan. Vikram Dodd has more on that here.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Rishi Sunak chairs cabinet.

11am: Grant Shapps, the energy secretary, gives a speech at the launch of Great British Nuclear.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

12.30pm: Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, gives a statement to MPs about his defence command paper.

2.30pm: Tim Davie, the BBC director general, gives evidence to the Lords communications committee.

4.15pm: Keir Starmer gives a speech at the Future of Britain conference organised by the Tony Blair Institute. Afterwards he will take part in a Q&A with Blair himself.

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