Streeting gives major pre-Budget speech on child poverty fuelling further leadership speculation

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The health secretary’s intervention came on the eve of Rachel Reeves’ make-or-break budget

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Wes Streeting has made a major eve-of-Budget speech arguing that his party needs to do more to tackle child poverty amid speculation that he is planning to make a bid to become leader.

Sources close to the health secretary denied that 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 the Labour Party.

Speaking at a conference in London, Mr Streeting discussed his own childhood, where his family faced poverty in London’s East End.

While listing the achievements of the party in government on child poverty, including free school breakfasts for primary school children, he insisted more needs to be done.

He said: “All of that support – from a loving family, outstanding teachers, and the welfare state – are what allowed me to beat the odds, make it to one of the world’s best universities, and to sit around the Cabinet table as part of the most working-class Cabinet in history.

“But it isn’t enough for a few of us to beat the odds. My mission is to change the odds for everyone. That’s why I entered politics, it’s why I’m a Labour MP, and it’s the thing that motivates me above all else.”

It comes as Rachel Reeves is expected to bow to pressure in Wednesday’s Budget to lift the two-child cap on benefits at a cost of more than £3bn.

There has been growing pressure on the government to scrap the cap, long blamed for keeping children in poverty, with more than 100 Labour MPs earlier this year signing a letter to Rachel Reeves urging her to do away with the limit amid concern over falling living standards in Britain.

Speaking about his own childhood, Mr Streeting said: “In recent years, progress has stalled when it comes to improving the life chances and opportunities for kids from working-class backgrounds like mine.

“Indeed, when I think back to my childhood, however tough we had it, it is nothing compared to the lives of children whose challenges confront me in my constituency surgeries today.

“I grew up in poverty in a single-parent household. Life wasn’t easy. But the welfare state put food in our fridge, money in the electric meter, and helped my mum with costs like school uniform.”

Asked about the two-child benefit cap, Mr Streeting said the “moral argument” for tackling child poverty is “an argument that needs to be won”.

“The chancellor will set out where we are and her decision tomorrow, I would just say this, especially in a room full of people who I think would agree with me, that the two-child limit has been a terrible policy has trapped children in poverty.

“This is a contested view in our country, and that is why, in my speech, if anything, it was a rallying cry to everyone that we have to win the moral argument.

“And we have to win the pragmatic argument for tackling poverty, and we cannot let this conviction among some of our fellow citizens that we should just walk by on the other side, when there are children suffering, when there are families struggling”, he said.

Mr Streeting added: “This is an argument that needs to be won. It's an argument that is not just an argument to government. It is an argument about what kind of country we want to be, what kind of society we are.”

There has been speculation that Mr Streeting will attempt to oust Sir Keir as prime minister after the Budget after an attack briefing on the health secretary by sources in Downing Street earlier this month.

The health secretary was forced to hit back at claims that he wants to take on Sir Keir after several reports suggested the prime minister’s position could be challenged ahead of next year’s local elections in May.

The health secretary told Sky News earlier this month that he does not understand “how anyone thinks it’s helpful to the prime minister”, and ruled out launching a bid for the top job after the Budget at the end of this month.

The PM has been subject to months of rumours that he could be replaced as Labour continue to tank in the polls under his leadership.

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