Sign this petition against the CAC banning motions on the 2-child benefit cap.

It looks like the CAC is on a ruling-out binge this year. The rules saying that motions must refer to events after 8 August, must not address matters covered by the NPF, and must be “on one topic” only, are notoriously slippery, in fact loose enough to allow the CAC to rule out almost anything.

Some years the CAC has ruled out relatively few. Other times, especially in the Ed Miliband years, it has ruled out wholesale.

The new soft-left group Mainstream explains:

“In a country as wealthy as the UK, allowing child poverty to deepen is a political choice. Labour must choose differently.

“That’s why two of Mainstream’s founding organisations, Compass and Open Labour, have been campaigning with Momentum to send a contemporary motion to the 2025 Labour Party Conference calling for an end to the two-child benefit limit. This was not substantially addressed by Labour’s National Policy Forum.

“However, CLPs and affiliates have informed Mainstream that the Conference Arrangements Committee have communicated that the motion will not be debated on tenuous procedural grounds.

“We cannot afford for child poverty to worsen. Nor can the Labour Party afford to stifle debate about its vision and values”.

The procedure is that the CAC hears appeals against ruling-out. Sometimes it grants the appeals. If it doesn’t, the CAC can be challenged inside the conference, though that is notoriously difficult, because it happens right at the start of conference, when delegates do not yet know what is happening, and with minimal debate.