Streeting gives major pre-Budget speech on child poverty fuelling further leadership speculation
Wes Streeting has delivered a massive Budget eve speech, arguing his party must do more to tackle child poverty amid speculation he will bid to become leader.
Sources close to the health secretary denied the speech to Barnardo’s and the King’s Fund was a leadership bid, but the issue of child poverty has become a touchstone for Labor.
Speaking at a conference in London, Mr Streeting described his own childhood, when his family faced poverty in London’s East End.
While listing the party’s achievements in government on child poverty, including free school breakfasts for primary school children, he insisted more needed to be done.
He said: “All this support from a loving family, outstanding teachers and the welfare state is what enabled me to overcome adversity, get into one of the best universities in the world and sit at the Cabinet table as part of the most working-class Cabinet in history.
“But it’s not enough for some of us to overcome the odds. My job is to change chances for everyone. That’s why I got into politics, that’s why I’m a Labor MP, and that’s what motivates me above all else.”
It comes as Rachel Reeves is expected to bow to pressure to scrap the two-child limit on benefits at a cost of more than £3bn in Wednesday’s Budget.
There is growing pressure on the government to lift the cap, long blamed for keeping children in poverty; More than 100 Labor MPs signed a letter to Rachel Reeves earlier this year urging her to remove the cap due to concerns about falling living standards in England.
Speaking about his own childhood, Mr Streeting said: “In recent years, progress has stalled in improving the life chances and opportunities of working-class children like me.
“In fact, when I think back to my childhood, no matter how difficult times we went through, it is nothing compared to the lives of children today who face the challenges I face in my constituency surgeries.
“I grew up in poverty in a single-parent home. Life wasn’t easy. But the welfare state put food in our fridge, money on the electricity meter, and helped my mother with expenses like school uniforms.”
Asked about the two-child benefit cap, Mr Streeting said the “moral argument” for tackling child poverty was “an argument that needs to be won”.
“The Chancellor will announce our whereabouts and his decision tomorrow. I can say, especially in a room full of people who I think will agree with me, that the two-child limit was a terrible policy and condemned children to poverty.
“This is a controversial view in our country, and so my speech was a call to all those who say we must win the moral debate.
“And we have to win the pragmatic argument for fighting poverty, and we can’t allow this belief to develop in some of our citizens that we have to get to the other side when there are children suffering, when there are families that are struggling,” he said.
Mr Streeting added: “This is an argument that needs to be won. It’s not just an argument against the government. It’s an argument about the kind of country we want to be, the kind of society we want to be.”
Following an attack briefing on the health secretary by sources in Downing Street earlier this month, there is speculation that Mr Streeting will try to oust Sir Keir as prime minister after the Budget.
The health secretary has been forced to hit back at suggestions he wants to take over Sir Keir after several reports suggested the prime minister’s position could be called into question ahead of local elections in May next year.
The health secretary told Sky News earlier this month that he did not understand “anybody thought this would be beneficial to the prime minister” and ruled out launching a bid for the top job after the Budget later this month.
Rumors have been circulating for months that the Prime Minister could be replaced, as Labor continues to fall in the polls under his leadership.
