Markus Andrews

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailWes Streeting has defended his party’s policy not to scrap the cap on child benefit for just two children in each household.His comments in an exclusive interview with The Independent came just ahead of rightwing former home secretary Suella Braverman shocking Westminster by calling for an end to the controversial policy brought in by the Tories during their coalition with the Lib Dems.Labour had been in favour of scrapping the child benefit cap but reversed on the proposal late last summer because shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said it was unaffordable, provoking huge anger and debate in the party.Mr Streeting was speaking to The Independent for a wider interview about his autobiographical book – One Boy, Two Bills and a Fry Up – in which he graphically describes growing up in poverty on east London council estates and how benefits allowed him and his mother to eat and put a coin in the electricity meter. His comments were made before Ms Braverman published her article but explained why Labour does not currently support scrapping the cap.In her article for The Daily Telegraph, Ms Braverman dedicated her thinking to the work of the late Labour peer, former MP and welfare reformer Frank Field.Wes Streeting wants to consign child poverty to the history books More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailA Tory MP is backing calls for ministers to change the law to stop “privileging” a father’s right to contact his children over the safety and wellbeing of domestic abuse victims.The Right to Equality organisation, which campaigns for legal reform to support the rights of women and girls, said it wants to ensure the current “presumption of contact is fully and finally removed” and will launch a report in parliament on Monday demanding change.Kate Kniveton, the Conservative MP for Burton and Uttoxeter, was previously found by a family judge to have been raped and abused by her ex-husband and former minister Andrew Griffiths. She said it is “clear we need legislative change to create a safer environment for children”.“I am supporting Right to Equality’s campaign as an ambassador for a presumption of no child contact in cases involving domestic abuse, opposing the current pro-contact culture that fails to protect survivors and their children,” she said.“We believe no child should be required to undergo contact with an abusive parent.”Ms Kniveton is backing the the Right to Equality organisation’s calls for change More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailAngela Rayner is expected to be interviewed under caution as part of Greater Manchester Police’s probe into the sale of her council house in 2015, according to reports.Labour’s deputy leader is said to have been contacted by the force to arrange a date for officers to quiz her about the controversy.She will be questioned over claims she breached electoral law, failed to pay capital gains tax and falsely received single-occupancy council tax discount.Angela Rayner has said she will quit if she is found to have broken the law More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailNadhim Zahawi has apologised over his handling of an HMRC investigation into his tax affairs and confirmed he paid the taxman £5m to settle the case.The former chancellor, who said on Thursday he is quitting as an MP at the general election, said he “should have been more explicit” about the details of his settlement.Mr Zahawi said his mistakes “have been mine” as he joined the exodus of Tory MPs standing down at the election expected this autumn.The MP said it was time for ‘a new, energetic Conservative’ to take over his Stratford-on-Avon seat More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailNatalie Elphicke’s defection to the Labour Party was “naked opportunism”, David Cameron has said.The foreign secretary criticised his former Conservative colleague over her decision to cross the floor of the House of Commons, saying: “I am not a fan of defectors”.“I think it leaves a legacy of upset and betrayal… I thought this was just naked opportunism.”Natalie Elphicke has been accused of seeking to influence her ex-husband’s sex offences trial More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailSuella Braverman has called for the two-child benefit cap to be scrapped, saying the policy is “aggravating child poverty”.The former home secretary praised the work of the late veteran Labour MP Frank Field towards eliminating poverty.And she called for the Conservatives to “do more to support families and children on lower incomes”.The call puts Ms Braverman, one of the leading figures on the Tory right, in a more progressive position than Labour on the issue. Sir Keir Starmer has come under significant pressure to promise an end to the policy, which prevents parents from claiming benefits for any third or subsequent child born after April 2017.Suella Braverman has called for the two-child benefit cap to be scrapped More