Keir Starmer’s spokesperson has denied it is planning on changing its current position on the two-child benefit cap.
The cap, introduced by the Conservative government in 2017, restricts child tax credit and universal credit to the first two children in most households.
It currently affects 1.6 million children.
Though ministers say addressing child poverty is still a priority, they have repeatedly dismissed backlash from backbenchers by it would be too expensive to scrap the Tory plan.
Then on Monday morning, education secretary Bridget Phillipson seemed to stray from the government line by saying that dropping the controversial policy may be “considered” by the government in the coming months.
She told Sky News: “Unfortunately, [the cap is] also a very expensive measure, but we will need to consider it as one of a number of levers in terms of how we make sure we lift children out of poverty.”
The PM’s spokesperson was quick to stomp on such a claim, though.
He told reporters: “It’s as the chancellor [Rachel Reeves] said yesterday, it’s as the PM I think addressed this morning as well, the government has got a certain set of fiscal inheritance that it has to deal with.
“I think, as the chancellor said on the round yesterday, that they weren’t going to make spending commitments without being able to say where the money was going to come from.
“But that doesn’t mean that we can’t take action to tackle child poverty.”
The spokesperson also denied that Phillipson had spoken out of turn.
He said: “I think she talked about the fact that there are a range of measures that we will need to consider in terms of how we respond to this, that we will look at every measure in terms of how we can address this terrible blight that scars the life chances of too many children.”
Asked if dropping the cap was possible, he added that “nothing’s out of the scope of the task force” which Labour have assigned to deal with child poverty.
Starmer also made it clear on Monday that there was no “silver bullet” to fix child poverty rates.
But, he added: “What the education secretary said this morning, I agree with … We will make sure that the strategy covers all the bases to drive down child poverty. No child should grow up in poverty.”
Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall reportedly held a “poverty strategy” briefing for MPs on Monday afternoon to try and win over the concerned backbenchers.
