Angela Rayner has encouraged Rachel Reeves to strip middle-class families of child benefits payments, it has been claimed.
The Labour Deputy Prime Minister urged the treasury to ‘claw back’ the benefit from families where the highest earner’s annual earnings were between £50,000 and £80,000, The Telegraph first reported.
If taken forward, the decision would undo an announcement by the Tories in March 2024 that was predicted to save 500,000 families around £1,300 per year.
Ms Rayner’s suggestion was reportedly contained in the same leaked memo, in which the Deputy PM proposed eight tax rises.
Ms Reeves encountered criticism this week after the memo’s details were revealed and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced an about-turn on her abolition of the universal winter fuel payment.
The memo accepted that the change to child benefit rules would be ‘contentious’ but added Labour could argue that the Tories had never adequately funded the policy to begin with.
Jeremy Hunt, the Conservative chancellor who announced the shift in 2024, urged Labour not to reverse it.
‘This may look like a relatively minor budget measure but was one of the most popular things we did because it helped striving middle-class families struggling with childcare costs.
‘Abandoning them would confirm that far from being a New Labour government, this is a traditional anti-aspiration Old Labour government.’
It comes as Ms Rayner called for migrant benefits to be cut and urged Ms Reeves to make changes, it was reported after the Deputy PM challenged the Chancellor’s economic approach.
The leaked letter also included bold recommendations that recommended making it more difficult for immigrants to obtain Universal credit.
Ms Rayner even said Labour should raise the fee migrants pay to use the NHS, in policies she and her team claimed were ‘contentious’ but still ‘worthy of consideration’.
Under existing policies, introduced under the Tories in 2015, foreigners on work visas pay to access healthcare – a fee presently set at £1,035.
The ‘radical’ policies also included restricting access to the state pension.
It comes amid rumours that Rayner is vying to succeed Keir Starmer, who was having difficulty yesterday controlling the disarray in his Cabinet.
As he surrendered to a rising dissent on his benches on Wednesday, the prime minister indicated an astonishing U-turn on cutbacks to winter heating allowance.
And the humiliating move could only be the beginning with signs Sir Keir is also contemplating giving ground on the two-child benefit cap, amid alarm at Labour’s poll decline.
The pressure amplified as it emerged Ms Rayner’s office wrote to embattled Chancellor Rachel Reeves in the Spring urging her to hike taxes again instead of cutting welfare.
Such talks are common in government, according to the Deputy PM’s advisers, who have denied leaking the document.
However, some Labour MPs believe that Ms Rayner is ‘on manoeuvres’ to ensure she does not have ‘blood on her hands’ from failed policies.
‘Angela has been loyal in public but she knows she needs to distance herself from some of the unpopular policies,’ one backbencher told The Times.
‘Starmer is not under any kind of threat now but if things have not improved closer to the next election that could change. Angela is ambitious and she needs to be credible if she is to present herself as the candidate of the left.’
Labour MP Cat Eccles admitted the government’s communications had been ‘really poor’, suggesting she blamed the PM’s advisers and Ms Reeves for not ‘listening’.
‘It’s annoying that we did raise these exact concerns at the time. And it’s only now or down the line after we’ve had those local election results, as you say, that all of a sudden, they’re all ears to their MPs,’ she told Times Radio.
‘Oh, what do you think the issues are? It’s like, well, actually, we told you months ago. So I think there’s a lot of us that are feeling slightly less buoyant than we did back in July last year.’
The winter fuel allowance move was seen as an embarrassment for Ms Reeves – who is at a G7 meeting in Canada.
Stripping around nine million pensioners of the payments was one of the first announcements the Chancellor made after Labour’s landslide election victory last year.
However, it has been generally held accountable for the party’s catastrophic decline in popularity.
Labour campaigners said it was toxic on doorsteps during May’s local elections, which saw the party lose councillors and the Runcorn and Helsby Parliamentary by-election.
Left-wing Labour MPs rallied behind Ms Rayner’s push on targeting taxes instead of welfare, prompting the Tories to argue that the Cabinet was in ‘open warfare’.
How about they remove all foreign criminals from our prisons and stop spending so much tax money on migrants? And then they go on about people claiming disability. I’m sick to the back teeth of seeing such things flung around.
They label everyone in the same category like they are freeloaders. What about those people who have Cancer and other life-debilitating diseases?
It’s infuriating that the government targets the most vulnerable in society while turning a blind eye to issues that truly need addressing. This scapegoating of disabled individuals and those in need reveals a cowardly approach to governance. Instead of addressing the root causes of economic challenges, they choose to pick on those who have no means to defend themselves.
Well, I’m among those individuals. I use a wheelchair but don’t worry about me or others who are similar to me. If I were a migrant, I would most likely be regarded as a king or queen, but we are just viewed as the remnants of civilisation.
It’s not like Angela Rayner doesn’t understand what it’s like to be poor since she was raised in poverty on a council estate.
She has an older brother and younger sister who could have been taken into care because their mother suffered from bipolar which affected the family.
Rayner said that when they were young they never had any books because her mother couldn’t read and write, and for the most part they were raised by their grandmother, so she should know how difficult is it for people living on the poverty line.
Her grandmother might have worked numerous jobs, which is extremely sad that she had to do that right up until she passed away, but jobs were easier to get then. Many were cash in hand and people weren’t falling over their feet to find employment, and although Angela Rayner should be proud of her far she has come, she should also remember where she came from because life could have taken a far less favourable turn!
I wonder how much Child Benefit Angela Rayner received—thousands of pounds? Recall that this woman got a council house by leaving school pregnant!
This government appear to despise the working class, they seem to hate everyone except asylum seekers, but not anyone that is British – they probably hate themselves for being British, but they want power of the state so that they can control every facet of our lives and to restrict all our freedoms.
We would save a lot of money if migrants were denied everything they receive while they are here since we shouldn’t be paying for them to have children that they cannot afford, but of course, we are the land of milk and honey, and our government seems to believe that money is no object as long as it’s not coming from their pocket, and so they shower every foreigner that rocks up.
If you go to the US you receive no benefits when you immigrate, and to be legally there you have to have a financial sponsor to ensure that you are not a hindrance to the taxpayer. I just can’t get my head around why illegal immigrants are given any government funds because then it gives those who want to come to the UK an even greater incentive.
Those who come into the UK and have applied for a genuine visa have to follow the rules, but it seems that when migrants cross over illegally on boats or by lorries the rules don’t seem to apply.
Rather than being a cabinet that serves the nation, our government functions more like a witches’ coven, and let’s face it, witches are far nicer.
Witches probably have more brains, morals and common sense than Robber Reeves and 3 Homes Rayner.
The working class and middle class are the backbone of our society, yet they get nothing for free, and what they do get is taken away – work hard, do well and end up with nothing.
Angela Rayner is attempting to present herself as the good guy, and that she’s being loyal to the masses. She is taking money from the needy because she’s become greedy, but she will cheerfully give it to migrants who are religion-obsessed and who reproduce and kill in the name of their God.
And she wants more of them here. She is on their side and she’s partying with them to keep their vote.
This isn’t Great Britain anymore, it’s Islamic UK, and she’s selling the UK to migrant benefit scroungers, Muslims and refugees, and she wants them to have the ideal conditions to produce as many children as they want.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 