Well just when you thought you had heard every lame excuse from Scottish Labour on the two-child cap ANAS Sarwar has made a ridiculous statement on Labour’s decision not to scrap the two-child benefit cap – he is claiming that changing the policy would risk a repeat of the disastrous Liz Truss mini-budget The Scottish Labour leader claimed there were fears of repeating the financial mismanagement imposed by Truss and then-chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, which saw inflation rise, the pound collapse and a hike to mortgage interest rates.

Sarwar said that scrapping the controversial benefit limit on parents with more than two children could “spook the markets”. It comes after Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said he was “not changing that policy” in regard to the benefit cap if the party wins the next election. Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper also defended Labour’s plan to keep the Tories’ two-child benefit cap, which has repeatedly been blamed for pushing families into poverty

In a recent interview with Laura Kuenssberg Starmer ruled out scrapping the two-child benefit cap, despite vowing to scrap it during his Labour leadership bid in 2020.

The policy, which was introduced by the Tories in 2017, prevents parents from claiming child tax credit or universal credit for third or subsequent children. There are exceptions for women who have been raped but they must disclose their rape to the Department for Work and Pensions – opponents have labelled this the “rape clause”.

The latest statistics show that 1.5 million children are affected by the two-child limit. Charities, including Action for Children, Child Poverty Action Group, Save the Children UK, End Child Poverty, Barnardo’s, the Children’s Society, and the NSPCC,

called for the policy to end, saying it is a “tax on siblings” and is the “biggest driver of rising child poverty in the UK today, A third of Glasgow’s children live in poverty. Life expectancy has stalled for the first time. £1.3bn to abolish the two-child limit would lift 250,000 children out of poverty, and 850,000 more would be in less deep poverty. It is obviously cost-effective. It must be scrapped.”

SNP MP Alison Thewliss MP said: “It’s time Keir Starmer and his pro-Brexit Labour colleagues listen to the experts and commit to the abolition of the abhorrent two-child benefit cap.

It would appear that Scottish Labour are totally opposed to this cap but they have to toe the Party line and do what they are told by Keir Starmer if however, we were an independent nation the Scottish Labour Party could make their own decisions so its time to vote for an Independent Scotland