Neil Kinnock backs Lucy Powell in Labour deputy leadership race

Former Labour leader Lord Neil Kinnock has backed Lucy Powell to be the party’s deputy leader.

The ballot for the contest between former Commons leader Ms Powell and Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson opens on Wednesday, with the result to be announced on October 25.

Lord Kinnock – who led the party from 1983 to 1992 – said Ms Powell would give “reasoning” support to Sir Keir Starmer’s Government.

It came after Ms Powell, who was sacked as Commons leader by the Prime Minister last month, described claims by her rival that she would bring division and disunity as “ridiculous”.

Ms Phillipson suggested last week that a vote for Ms Powell could lead to more “distractions, infighting and noise”.

Manchester Central MP Ms Powell dismissed suggestions she could put Labour back on the road to opposition as “a slightly ridiculous claim” and said she could help the party “reach back” into communities and make better decisions.

Party grandee Lord Kinnock suggested Ms Powell would ensure the wider Labour movement would be listened to.

He said: “I’ve known Lucy as a friend and comrade for over 20 years. She is totally Labour and embodies the basic truth that it is vital that the broad Labour movement is heard and heeded.

“Our sustained values of justice, equity and liberty offer the principled and practical policies that our country, our world, need. Lucy will insist upon that reality as an elected deputy leader who will give distinctive and reasoning support to our Government.

“I have no doubt she will be an outstanding deputy leader in the best traditions of our party.”

Ms Powell said “it means a lot” to have the Labour peer’s backing, adding: “We can be better if we listen to broader voices and make a stronger case of whose side we are on and in whose interests we serve. I will help us to do that.”

Earlier on Sunday she told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “We can’t just pretend everything’s going great and what we need is just more of the same.”

She continued: “I think when you have a narrower and narrower group of people making decisions that are not connected to the communities that we are here to serve, that is when mistakes are made.”

She vowed to help the Government make “much better decisions and that we stick to our manifesto pledges, that we’re really clear about the principles of this Labour Government”.

This would include movement on the two-child benefit cap, which Ms Powell said she wanted to see “lifted urgently, because I think that speaks to who we are, what our values are”.

Ms Phillipson won the backing of former home secretary Alan Johnson, who described her as “one of Labour’s star performers” who would “help tell a better story” about the party’s achievements.

The contest was triggered by Angela Rayner’s resignation as deputy leader over her tax affairs.