\n<\/p>\n
Labour should consider raising taxes on gambling firms to cover the cost of lifting the two-child benefit cap, the party\u2019s deputy leadership candidate Lucy Powell has suggested.<\/p>\n
The Manchester Central MP, who is battling with the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, to succeed Angela Rayner as Labour\u2019s deputy leader, also acknowledged the public was \u201cexasperated\u201d because of \u201csome mistakes\u201d Labour had made in office.<\/p>\n
Powell said the party had to \u201cgive a greater sense of who we\u2019re fighting for\u201d including by being \u201cclear that our objective is to lift children out of poverty\u201d by axing the two-child benefit limit.<\/p>\n
On Friday Phillipson told the Guardian that abolishing the \u201cspiteful\u201d cap was \u201con the table\u201d and the policy had \u201cpunished and pushed children into hardship\u201d, the clearest sign yet that Downing Street is preparing to scrap the controversial measure.<\/p>\n
The education secretary vowed, if she won the deputy leadership contest, she would have a mandate to make tackling child poverty the \u201cunbreakable moral mission\u201d of this government.<\/p>\n
Writing in the Mirror, Powell said: \u201cI want us to be clear that our objective is to lift children out of poverty and that will mean we need to lift the cap. Gordon Brown has set out ways of raising money from gambling firms which should get careful consideration.\u201d<\/p>\n
The policy was announced in 2015 by the Conservative government and restricts child tax credit and universal credit to the first two children in most households.<\/p>\n
Brown recently backed a report from the Institute for Public Policy Research, which said reforms to gambling levies could generate the \u00a33.2bn needed to scrap the two-child limit and benefit cap.<\/p>\n
The thinktank\u2019s research said scrapping the policies could lift 500,000 children out of poverty.<\/p>\n
Powell, who was sacked as Commons leader in Keir Starmer\u2019s recent reshuffle, sought to differentiate herself from Phillipson, who is regarded as Downing Street\u2019s choice for the deputy leader position.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not afraid to have difficult conversations when we need to change course,\u201d she wrote, adding: \u201cI would be a strong independent choice for deputy leader.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t have been prouder of getting a Labour government last year. But I know that people have been exasperated because of some mistakes we\u2019ve made, and delivering change can sometimes be slow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Powell said \u201cdespite our early achievements, this Labour story hasn\u2019t been heard loud enough\u201d, and \u201cwe\u2019ve got to give a greater sense of who we\u2019re fighting for\u201d.<\/p>\n
The prime minister has not committed to axing the limit, but he has consistently declined to rule it out.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile Phillipson is reportedly looking at plans to abolish a subsidy that means two-thirds of Ofsted inspection costs are effectively discounted for private schools.<\/p>\n
The cost of providing Ofsted inspections to private schools in 2024-25 was \u00a36.5m, according to figures set out by then education minister Stephen Morgan earlier this month. But only \u00a32.2m of that was recovered by Ofsted.<\/p>\n
Allies of Phillipson told the Telegraph: \u201cInspection is crucially important for driving up standards in all schools as well as keeping children safe \u2026 but it\u2019s time every independent school paid its fair share.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s frankly unfair. Taxpayers, most of whom send their children to state schools, shouldn\u2019t have to foot the bill to make sure they\u2019re accountable to fee-paying parents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Powell\u2019s intervention comes as Rachel Reeves was urged to cancel plans to be the guest of honour at an event hosted by the chief lobbyist of the gambling industry while the Treasury is in the midst of a review of taxes on the \u00a312bn sector.<\/p>\n
The chancellor was due to appear at a \u201cprivate reception\u201d for business leaders, organised by the corporate communications company Brunswick, at next week\u2019s Labour party conference in Liverpool.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Labour should consider raising taxes on gambling firms to cover the cost of lifting the two-child benefit cap, the party\u2019s deputy leadership candidate Lucy Powell has suggested. The Manchester Central MP, who is battling with the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, to succeed Angela Rayner as Labour\u2019s deputy leader, also acknowledged the public was \u201cexasperated\u201d because<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22861,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[12256,561,1339,6303,134,1165,4439,183,6552,3511],"class_list":{"0":"post-22860","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-axe","9":"tag-benefit","10":"tag-cap","11":"tag-gambling","12":"tag-labour","13":"tag-lucy","14":"tag-powell","15":"tag-raise","16":"tag-taxes","17":"tag-twochild"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}