Anas Sarwar has been accused of trying to “con” voters by claiming to oppose the Tories’ two-child benefit cap in principle, while agreeing to it continuing in practice. 

SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said the Scottish Labour leader had a brass neck for adopting the stance after Sir Keir Starmer said he had no plans to abolish the cap.

Mr Sarwar’s deputy, Dame Jackie Baillie, today admitted the cap “damaged families” and “exacerbated poverty”, and was akin to the former one-child policy of Communist China.

However, she too defended keeping it for now, arguing Labour had to be prudent given the “financial mess” it would inherit from the Tories if it won the general election.

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The UK Labour manifesto of 2019 promised to get rid of the measure, also known as the “rape clause”, which blocks parents claiming universal credit of child tax credit for more than two children unless they can show any additional child was conceived through rape.

On Sunday, Sir Keir said he remained opposed to the cap, but refused to commit a future Labour government to scrapping it, arguing the UK’s finances were too precarious.

Ending the cap in Scotland would cost around £250million a year and affect 80,000 children.

On Monday, Mr Sarwar said Scottish Labour continued to oppose the cap, while siding with Sir Keir in a row that has caused turmoil in Labour ranks. 

“Scottish Labour policy has not changed,” Mr Sarwar insisted. 

“We continue to oppose the two-child limit. We continue to believe that it exacerbates poverty, and we continue to believe that it needs to change.”

He also told STV News that Labour policy ahead of the next election would have to conform to “the fiscal rules” and the party would not “make unfunded spending commitments”.

On BBC Radio Scotland, Mr Flynn said: “Anas Sarwar appears to be rubbing some Brasso on his neck this morning, because he is trying to con the people of Scotland into believing he is against the policy when just yesterday on the television he was saying he backs Keir Starmer’s position.”

He added: “The reality is that London Labour has given a diktat to the Scottish Labour leader that he needs to support their ridiculous and heinous position in relation to this policy and Anas Sarwar has followed suit.”

Asked if he disbelieved Mr Sarwar’s commitment to stand against the policy, the Aberdeen South MP said there was a “big difference” between campaigning against something and getting rid of it while in power.

Speaking later on the channel, Dame Jackie maintained her party’s position was “very clear”.

She said: “We’ve not changed that position and we remain completely opposed to the two child benefit cap because we know it damages families, we know it exacerbates poverty.

“My understanding of what Keir Starmer was saying is that they are worried about the financial mess we will inherit from the Tories.”

She added that she would do “everything in my power” to encourage the UK Labour Party to scrap the policy if elected, but also said she expected Labour’s planned reform of universal credit to address the rape clause.

Shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell said there was “no money left” for Labour to reverse all the Tory policies it wanted to after the election.

She told Sky News: “We’ve opposed this policy, this is not a good policy. We’ve opposed it for many years through Parliament, but we’re now in a very different economic situation.”

Reminded shadow work and pensions secretary Jonathan Ashworth recently called the policy “heinous”, Ms Powell said: “Both can be true at the same time, that things can be a bad policy, they can be bad politics, but the economic reality is what we’re now faced with.

“There are lots of bad policies… we’re not implementing them, it’s about not reversing…”

Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner previously called the cap “obscene and inhumane”.

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Ms Powell added on LBC: “Both things can be true at the same time, which is that things can be bad policy and an awful situation but that we can’t immediately afford to do something about them.

“And that is true of a whole range of issues, I’m afraid. After 13 years there is a lot of things that we need to put right and we’ve got action plans to do some of that.”

But Labour MP Stella Creasy said the cap was fuelling child poverty.

She told BBC Radio 4: “We can all see in our communities that it is pushing up child poverty, the evidence shows us that.

"The argument that many of us are making is that the evidence in and of itself is this policy is costing us more than it is saving, might it not be better to deal with policy and also get the savings we can put into investing in the economy.”

Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who now sits as an independent MP, said many of the party’s MPs were “seething with anger”.

He told LBC: “Even the Blair government, which Keir Starmer often quotes, did do a great deal to lift children out of poverty by not having a two-child policy.

Left-winger Labour MP Jon Trickett cited recent House of Commons Library research that suggested removing the cap would cost around £1.4bn this year and £1.7bon next year.

He said: “The country could, and should, immediately take hundreds of thousands of families out of poverty in an instant by ending the two-child benefit cap.”