Momentum is launching a petition with Socialist Campaign Group MPs, demanding the Party’s National Policy Forum representatives “stand up for real Labour values”

Keir Starmer is facing another headache as Labour activists and MPs launch a push for the Party to adopt bold policies like scrapping the two-child benefit cap and introducing free school meals, ahead of a crucial policy making meeting.

This weekend Labour’s National Policy Forum – composed of representatives of the Labour membership, trade unions and other party stakeholders – will meet in Nottingham to thrash out the ‘party programme’, which will form the basis of Labour’s next General Election manifesto.

Ahead of the meeting, the grassroots Labour campaign group Momentum is encouraging Party members to lobby their National Policy Forum representatives in support of a series of “transformative” policy amendments, including scrapping the two-child limit.

Starmer has come under sustained fire internally after suggesting the Party would keep the cap, which Starmer, Angela Rayner and Jonathan Ashworth have also criticised. Critics of the leadership’s position have included MPs from across the Party, four Labour mayors and the UNISON and Fabian Society General Secretary.

The initiative, titled ‘Stand Up for Real Labour Values’, is being backed by leading MPs on the Labour eft including John McDonnell, the former Shadow Chancellor, who is calling on Labour to nationalise the crisis-hit water and energy sectors.

Andy McDonald, who resigned from Starmer’s shadow cabinet during Conference 2021 in a row over the £15 minimum wage, has produced a video with Momentum in which he restates his call for Labour to adopt the policy, alongside various pro-worker policies as part of a ‘New Deal for Working People’ and the scrapping of the two-child benefits cap – ending the Tories “heinous” policy that pushes low-income families further into poverty, while lifting sick pay and universal credit.

Kim Johnson has added her voice to the call to scrap the two-child limit. Other amendments which Momentum-backed reps have submitted to the NPF meeting this weekend include:

• Free school meals – universal free school meals for primary school children, a demand which has attracted significant support within Labour in recent months, with Mayor Sadiq Khan introducing it in London, Welsh and Scottish Labour backing it and various MPs from across the Party supporting the FSM campaigns led by the National Education Union and the Mirror.

• Repeal repressive Tory laws – restoring democratic freedoms by repealing laws like the Illegal Migration Bill, Public Order Act, Voter ID and Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.

• Housing for the many – the mass building of council homes and the introduction of rent controls, which are supported by Labour mayors including Sadiq Khan, and had previously been backed by Lisa Nandy, Shadow Secretary of State for Housing and Communities.

• Save the NHS – end all means of privatisation through the renationalisation of a publicly-funded NHS, inflation-proof pay rises for staff and the establishment of a publicly-run National Care Service. Labour MP Kate Osborne has produced a video on the topic, which flies against Starmer’s and Streeting’s calls for more use of the private sector in the NHS.
• New deal for working people – £15-an-hour minimum wage, a public sector pay increase in line with inflation and the repeal of anti-trade union laws.

Momentum had mobilised around the NPF’s consultation phase where CLPs submitted policy proposals. Yet the Party’s draft policy programme bore little resemblance to submissions:  52 CLP consultation submissions on reversing NHS privatisation, 31 on Free School meals, several dozen on public ownership of water, energy, etc., and 28 on rent controls, yet none of these featured in the Party’s initial proposals.

With a shadow cabinet reshuffle rumoured, the Labour leadership will be keen to use potential promotions and demotions to keep in line shadow ministers, who play a crucial role at the meetings negotiating on amendments. There have been significant tensions between Starmer and Reeves and other figures in the shadow cabinet, from the two-child benefit cap to the watering down of Labour’s green investment plans.

Hilary Schan, Momentum Co-Chair said: “Tory Britain isn’t working – our privatised public services are dysfunctional, our NHS is on its knees and low pay is endemic, while corporations and the super-rich laugh their way to the bank.”

“Transformative change in the mould of the post-war Labour Government has never been more urgent or popular. That’s why Labour figures in regional and devolved government like Mark Drakeford, Andy Burnham and Sadiq Khan are introducing policies based on our Party’s founding values of universalism, democratic ownership and public investment. Yet instead the Labour leadership is turning its back on our Party’s core agenda and signing up to Tory economic and social policies instead, like the two-child benefit cap.

“We’re urging NPF reps to stand up for real Labour values this weekend and back policies like free school meals, rent controls and public ownership. We can’t go on like this – it’s time to restore decency and democracy to Britain.”

Andy McDonald MP said: “Tory Britain isn’t working. Nurses and teachers are forced to use foodbanks while corporate profits and bonuses soar. It’s clear Rishi Sunak has no plan and no desire to change this failing system, so it falls to the Labour Party to rebalance the scales of our economy and ensure dignity and security for working-class people.

“I’m glad to see the Labour Leadership recommit to the New Deal for Working People – now the Party needs to follow with a £15 minimum wage, the scrapping of the two-child benefits cap and other punitive sanctions, and increased support for the sick and those on universal credit. It’s time to put Victorian Britain firmly in the past.”

Kim Johnson MP said: “The two-child cap on benefits payments is as cruel as it is ineffective. With one in seven children in poverty living in working households, work just does not pay enough to live on. Larger families are punished, leaving them struggling. Lifting the cap would immediately lift a quarter of a million children out of poverty – making it the single most effective intervention to tackle child poverty.

“The evidence is there for all to see. Punishing families for having more than two children doesn’t push parents back into work – it only drives more children into poverty.

“The 1997 Labour government was bold in its policies to tackle child poverty, from Sure Start to flexible childcare. Today such a programme is more important than ever. Ending the two child cap is supported by Labour members and trade unions alike. I hope the Party takes it up at the National Policy Forum this weekend.”

John McDonnell MP said: “It’s clear that people are fed up of the Tories – but they want real change, too. That means public services like water, energy and rail in public ownership, not making profits for shareholders at our expense. It means a welfare system which actually supports the poor and the vulnerable, instead of stigmatising them. It means real investment and the restoration of trade union rights with proper pay rises for workers. And it means the state taking a leading role in redesigning our economy for the green transition.  We know these policies are more popular and urgently needed more than ever – electorally and politically, they’re just common sense.”

Beth Winter MP said: After more than a decade of Tory austerity, the cost of living crisis is impacting millions, whilst a minority benefit from their suffering. The kinds of policies we need to put front and centre are those that will lift people’s living standards and show life with Labour will be better. We have to sweep away policies like the two child limit and benefit cap, lifting people’s real pay, and we need to rebuild public provision – from council housing to care services – and stand up for universalism, such as with free school meals. Labour’s left policy priorities resonate with the public – let’s make sure they are in our winning manifesto.”

NEC member Mish Rahman, recently blocked from Labour’s longlist for the seat of Wolverhampton West, said: “As a member of Labour’s NEC, I will be in Nottingham this weekend where National Policy Forum representatives will vote to decide on the Party’s programme. The Tories have broken Britain. Our NHS is on its knees, privatised public services like water and energy are failing and expensive, millions of children are living in poverty and people don’t have enough to make ends meet.

“But right when we need bold policies, the leadership is watering down its own ambitions, and even refusing to abolish the two-child benefits limit. But the tide is turning – we’ve seen everyone from UNISON to Labour MPs on the right of the Party to Labour mayors speaking out against this heinous policy. And we’re determined to keep up the pressure.”

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