Keir Starmer says he will 'listen' to Anas Sarwar on scrapping two child benefit cap

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Keir Starmer has said he will “listen” to Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar on scrapping the two child benefit cap.The would-be Prime Minister also said it is his ambition to lift millions of children out of poverty if Labour wins on July 4.Polls show Labour is on the verge of a return to power for the first time since 2010.However, Starmer has been criticised by anti-poverty groups and the SNP for not backing the abolition of the Tory Government’s two child cap.Critics of the policy say it fuels poverty levels and punishes vulnerable children.Sarwar has previously said he and Scottish Labour MPs would press a Starmer Government to axe the cap if Labour is in power.Asked what his response would be to Sarwar’s pleas, Starmer told the Record: "To listen to what he has to say, as I always do, and to listen to what I hope will be Labour MPs....I don’t have a magic wand.

I can’t pretend the economy isn’t damaged in the way that it was under this Government. I’m not going to make commitments that aren’t costed or funded.”“Would I expect Anas to make his views known to me?

Of course I would, that’s the way we operate.”The last Labour Government lifted millions of older people and children out of poverty and Starmer has been asked to reveal his own strategy.Asked if his ambition is to take millions of kids out of poverty, he said:“Yes, it is to replicate what we did under the last Labour Government to drive child poverty right down.

We can get going on that straight away by tackling the underlying causes of poverty.”Research by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that the number of children impacted by the cap will rise to about 670,000 in the next five years, while 250,000 will be affected next year.At the Daily