Angela Rayner said Labour candidate Michael Shanks is right to raise his concerns about the party’s refusal to scrap the two-child cap on tax credits.

The party’s UK deputy leader defended the policy stated by leader Keir Starmer, that it would not scrap the cap but said Shanks, the candidate in the Rutherglen and Hamilton west by-election, could take a different position.

Shanks has said the two-child rule is "heinous" and he would vote to abolish it if elected.

Rayner, who frequently speaks about her upbringing in poverty, has previously said the two-child cap is “obscene and inhumane”.

On a visit to meet City Building apprentices in Glasgow, she said the party can’t do all it wants to but will have an anti-poverty strategy.

Asked if Shanks would be suspended if he was to vote against the party line, she said: “That’s not how we work in the Labour Party.  If back bench MPs vote against the whip and they do, do that from time to time.

 “Obviously for front bench MPs it’s different.

“He’s right to raise issues, the Labour Party raises issues all the time, I raise issues but we have a collective responsibility as a shadow cabinet.”

She added: “He wouldn’t be the first Labour MP to vote against a vote we’ve had in parliament.

"He will be the voice of the people he’s there to represent and I understand that the point is that we have the discussions within the Labour Party."

She echoed Starmer’s words earlier in the week when he was in Rutherglen.

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Rayner added: “We’re a government in waiting and that means we have to make difficult choices.

“We can’t fund everything because the Tories crashed the economy and have left us in a very difficult place.

“That’s not to say we don’t have a child poverty strategy and as we get into government and we grow the economy that we can't do things to alleviate difficulties, but we can’t do everything at once.

“And that’s the honesty that we’re giving to people and we will be responsible with the finances because the Tories have shown what happens when you’re irresponsible and working people pay the price.”

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Speaking to the Glasgow Times during her visit, Rayner referred to her own childhood and experience of poverty.

Glasgow Times:

She said: “I’m a kid that grew up on a working-class council estate and was that child in poverty.

“I don’t want to see the levels of poverty we’ve got in this country.

“We will tackle it. It will be our number one priority but we are not going to be able to do everything immediately but we will be striving to making those achievements.”

Asked if she was now letting down those children who find themselves in the situation she was in as a child she said a new government had to be responsible and introduce fully funded policies.

She said: “So the first thing we need to do is get into government and show the British people we’re responsible and we’re not going to do what Liz Truss did and crash the economy, so we have a fiscal rule that says that we will identify where the money is coming from and we will base our policies on that.

Rayner said: “My day one in government will about how we get to that place where we can end that child poverty.

“We’re introducing a child poverty strategy and we have an absolute focus to make that happen but we won’t make promises.”