Four Labour MPs readmitted to party after voting against two-child benefit cap - but three remain suspended
5 February 2025, 15:53 | Updated: 5 February 2025, 16:03
Four Labour MPs who were suspended for voting against the Government on the two-child benefit cap have had the whip restored.
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Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne, Imran Hussain and Rebecca Long-Bailey have had their whip restored.
The four MPs were among seven Labour MPs who were suspended from the parliamentary party in July for backing an SNP-led amendment to scrap the cap.
It is understood that the whip remains suspended for the other three MPs, but it will be reviewed again in the future.
They are former shadow chancellor and Hayes and Harlington MP John McDonnell, Poplar and Limehouse MP Apsna Begum, and Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana. They will remain sitting as Independents.
The amendment to the King's Speech last summer was Sir Keir Starmer's first Commons rebellion. The Government comfortably defeated the vote to scrap the cap, but more than 40 Labour MPs recorded no vote.
The House of Commons voted 363 to 103, majority 260, to reject the amendment tabled in the name of SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn.
MP Zarah Sultana took said on X that she found out from the media that the whip had been restored to the four MPs.
She believed that her open support for Gaza has led to her remaining suspended.
She wrote: "Turns out speaking up for Palestine is still a punishable offence."
The two-child benefit cap, introduced in 2015 by then-Conservative chancellor George Osborne, restricts child welfare payments to the first two children born to most families.
Back in July 2024, Apsna Begum, the MP for Poplar and Limehouse, told LBC's Tonight with Andrew Marr: “I was spoken to while I was in the chamber and I was spoken to again before the votes. I was shocked by the tone and the tenor of the whipping operation,”
The weeks leading up until this point, there hadn't really been anything of this nature at all and I was contacted and I was spoken to in person, in the chamber, whilst I was waiting to speak.”
She added: “The whipping operation was very aggressive.”
Ms Begum also claimed Labour's support of her against her ex-husband - who stood against her in the election - was brought up during conversations with party whips.
Asked if she felt bullied by the whips, Ms Begum said: “Yes, it definitely felt like that. I’ve just run in an election in which my ex-husband was standing against me, I’ve been forthcoming about my experiences of domestic abuse and coercive control and I really felt my experiences were being weaponised against me in this situation and that was very shocking.
“The fact of saying, supporting me in regards to my ex-husband being discussed in the context of a whipping operation…is unacceptable.”
