Four Labour MPs who were suspended for voting against the Government on the two-child benefit cap have had the whip restored.
Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne, Imran Hussain and Rebecca Long-Bailey were among seven Labour MPs who were suspended from the parliamentary party in July for backing an SNP-led amendment to scrap the cap.
Rebecca Long-Bailey (Jeff Overs/BBC/PA)
It is understood that the whip remains suspended for the other three MPs, but it will be reviewed again in the future.
They are former shadow chancellor and Hayes and Harlington MP John McDonnell, Poplar and Limehouse MP Apsna Begum, and Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana. They will remain sitting as Independents.
The amendment to the King’s Speech last summer was Sir Keir Starmer’s first Commons rebellion. The Government comfortably defeated the vote to scrap the cap, but more than 40 Labour MPs recorded no vote.
The House of Commons voted 363 to 103, majority 260, to reject the amendment tabled in the name of SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn.
The cap, introduced in 2015 by then-Conservative chancellor George Osborne, restricts child welfare payments to the first two children born to most families.