Labour is not the party of welfare, and attacks on the Budget for scrapping the two-child benefit cap reflect “ignorance”, Cabinet minister Liz Kendall has said.

Speaking to The i Paper as the Government launched its long-awaited child poverty strategy, the Technology Secretary also denied that the plan was a sop to placate unruly left-wing Labour MPs.

Kendall hit back at criticism from Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and others, who dubbed Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s package “a Budget for Benefits Street, paid for by working people” through tax rises.

Kendall, co-chair of Labour’s Child Poverty Taskforce, played a key role in shaping the strategy in her previous Cabinet position of work and pensions secretary.

But her tenure at that department was also marked by a major backbench rebelli

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