40 Labour MPs defy Labour leadership with welfare bill amendment

Labour MP Helen Goodman has tabled an amendment to the welfare bill, threatening to further split the party over the reforms. As yet, Labour have failed to settle on a stance on the issue, with divisions in the Shadow Cabinet unresolved.

On Sunday Harriet Harman, acting Labour leader, suggested that the party would not try to block the Government’s welfare bill. She said it would not oppose plans to limit tax credits to families with one or two children or the welfare cap, which reduces the limit people can claim from £26,000 to £23,000 in London and £20,000 in the rest of the country.

It looks like Labour’s position will probably be to abstain on the vote, when it comes before the Commons next week.

However, a number of Labour MPs – including leadership candidates Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham and Jeremy Corbyn – have said they oppose the Government’s plans. Burnham and Cooper believe Labour should put forward a reasoned amendment, and oppose the bill if the amendment fails. The pair disagreed with Harman at the Shadow Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

Yesterday, Helen Goodman, the MP for Auckland, announced that she had tabled a “reasoned amendment”(the full text of which is below) to the bill. She revealed on Twitter that at 40 Labour MPs had signed it.

With 40 other MPS i’ve put down a motion to reject Tory Welfare bill, because it will push more children esp in big families into poverty.

— Helen Goodman (@HelenGoodmanMP) July 15, 2015

Goodman is backing Cooper for leader but her camp deny having prior knowledge of the backbencher’s amendment.

The Bill calls for the House to decline giving a second reading to the Welfare Reform and Work Bill for a number of reasons,  it would ignore the plight of child in low income working households and increase the number of children living in poverty.

Goodman, who was until recently shadow minister for welfare reform – a position she left to take up a role in the Treasury select committee – explained to LabourList that she tabled the bill because the changes “will push more children into poverty.” She argued that “the government are also trying to airbrush the whole concept of child poverty from the national debate in an attempt to hide the reality of what they are doing”.

Here’s the full text of the bill:

That this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, notwithstanding its potentially useful provisions on apprenticeships, because the Bill would have the effect of ignoring the plight of children in low income working households, removing the concept of child poverty from the statute book, increasing the number of children, especially those from large families, living in poverty, worsening work incentives for people whose incomes are below average and reducing the incomes of sick and disabled people.