UK Labor leader defends plan to maintain two-child welfare limit

LONDON, July 18 (Reuters) – The leader of Britain’s opposition Labor Party, Keir Starmer, on Tuesday defended his commitment to uphold a controversial cap on child welfare payments if his party wins a general election scheduled for next year.

Starmer, whose party enjoys a double-digit lead over the Conservatives in opinion polls, is trying to convince voters that Labor would not be reckless with government money.

“We keep saying collectively as a party that we have to make decisions and in the abstract everyone says, yes, that’s right,” Starmer said at an event in London.

“But then we make a tough decision…and they’re like, ‘Well, I don’t like that, can’t we just not make that one?'”

Starmer said over the weekend that he would not change a policy introduced in 2017 by the ruling Conservative Party that means families only receive some types of benefit payments for the first two children in a family.

The Conservatives have accused Labor of being reckless with public money and Starmer’s comments are seen as an attempt to avoid such criticism.

But the announcement angered politicians from his own party, who said the policy was unfair, cruel and caused child poverty.

The Child Poverty Action Group charity estimates that 1.5 million children live in families affected by the policy and said removing the cap would immediately lift 250,000 children out of poverty.

Starmer, speaking at the London event hosted by former Prime Minister Tony Blair, said economic turmoil during Liz Truss’s brief tenure last year underscored the need for careful spending.

Truss was forced to resign after six weeks as prime minister after announcing a series of unfunded tax cuts that shattered Britain’s reputation for financial stability.

“If you want proof that unfunded commitments cause harm, which then affects workers, then you have a living example of that. So it’s critical,” Starmer said.

Reporting by Andrew MacAskill; edited by william james

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