A recent vote on benefits for parents of more than two children has shown that the new Labour government is ‘starting to unravel’, according to a local party chair.

MPs voted on a motion to lift the two-child benefit cap earlier this week – a Scottish National Party amendment to the King’s Speech - with the majority of Labour’s members voting against the motion, including Carlisle MP Julie Minns.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer suspended seven of his party’s MPs, including former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, for backing the SNP’s amendment.

At this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Starmer said his government would take a vigorous approach to child poverty and that a ministerial task force would be established on the matter.

A Labour spokesperson said ‘voting against the party’s position on the King’s Speech is a serious matter’ and the party is ‘very clear’ it’s not ‘going to make promises’ it can’t keep, adding that the government was already drafting measures to address child poverty.

The cap stops most parents from claiming additional child-related benefits if they have more than two children.

To remove it would cost £3.4billion a year but also lift around 500,000 children out of poverty, according to the think-tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

Chancellor Rachel Reeves said she wouldn’t commit to lifting the cap ‘without being able to say where the money was going to come from’.

But rebel MP Zarah Sultana, elected as a Labour MP and who backed the SNP’s amendment, leading to her having the whip removed, said on X: “There's enough wealth in our society to tackle child poverty.

“It's just a matter of looking in the right places.”

Tom Adams, chair of the Carlisle and District Green Party, said the government is ‘startin to unravel barely 18 days into its administration’.

He said: “This vote exposes the lie that Labour are socialists.

“There is a reason why it is now known as the ‘child starver’ party, it is because they claim there is not enough money to support the lifting of a policy that keeps a quarter of a million children in poverty.”

He echoed Ms Sultana’s words, stating the money could be found by ‘taxing the rich’.

“Why doesn’t Labour want to do this?  

“Because many of their donors, funders of their campaign, belong to this privileged group,” he alleged, adding that the party donated billions in assistance to Ukraine.

He said the suspensions were ‘an act of draconian authoritarianism on Keir Starmer’s part’ and added: “My advice to these MPs is to cross the floor now they are effectively independent and join a party that upholds their principles, namely the Green Party.”