Labour Party suspends 7 lawmakers for voting to end 2-child benefit cap

LONDON

Seven Labour members of parliament (MPs) were suspended Tuesday for voting in favor of an opposition amendment that aimed to scrap a two-child benefit cap.

Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell was among the Labour MPs who voted for the motion submitted by the Scottish National Party (SNP).

The motion would force the government to scrap the cap policy, which blocks parents from claiming social benefits for more than two children. It failed by 363 votes to 103, giving the Labour Party a majority of 260.

Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Imran Hussain, Apsana Begum and Zarah Sultana were the other MPs who had the whip suspended and they will now sit with independent MPs in the House of Commons.

Many Labour MPs oppose the cap despite voting with the party against the amendment.

“The government’s approach to party discipline has been appalling. No MP should have lost the whip for their vote this evening, especially on a policy that almost everyone in Labour opposes,” Nottingham East MP Nadia Whittome told the Guardian.

“Our party has a huge majority. If it is to govern from a position of strength, it should be able to tolerate disagreement without making threats and employing the most severe punishments," she said.

“This does not breed a healthy culture,” she added.

“If MPs are unable to stand up to the frontbench when they think they’re wrong, the government is more likely to make poor decisions.”

Sultana wrote on X that the amendment would “scrap the two-child benefit cap, which would lift 330,000 children out of poverty.”

“I will always stand up for the most vulnerable in our society,” she added.

Burgon wrote on X that he believes that the government strategy to end child poverty “must include scrapping this measure.”

Begum also took to the social media platform to say that she “voted against the two-child benefit cap, which has contributed to rising and deepening levels of child poverty and food insecurity for many East End families.”

“I have now been informed that I have had the whip withdrawn.”

Removing the cap would cost the government £3.4 billion ($4.38 billion) a year, according to estimates.

The previous government estimated that 4.3 million children, or 30% of all children in the UK, were living in relatively low-income households, according to the House of Lords Library.