LABOUR were accused of “simply following the Tories” yesterday after Harriet Harman said her party would support George Osborne’s plans to cut welfare and limit child tax credit.

They were happy to “consign people to years of more austerity and cuts”, the SNP’s Eilidh Whiteford said.

Harman, the party’s acting leader, suggested Labour had lost the election because they were not tough enough when it came to benefits.

She said: “What we’ve got to do is listen to what people around the country said to us and recognise that we didn’t get elected, again, and this wasn’t a blip.

“This was the second time we haven’t got elected, and actually what people don’t want us to do is they don’t want us to do blanket opposition, they want us to actually be specific about what we are going to be challenging and holding the government to account on, but more than that, they want us to listen to their concerns and we’ve got to recognise why it was that the Tories are in government and not us. Which is not because people love the Tories particularly, but because they didn’t trust us on the economy and on benefits.”

Harman said she had spoken to families with two children during the election campaign who told her they couldn’t afford a third. “They’re working hard and they feel that it’s unfair on other people, that they can have bigger families that they would love to have if they were in the position to do that. Now we have to listen to that.”

Whiteford, the SNP’s work and pensions spokeswoman, was damning of Harman’s lack of opposition to Tory Budget welfare cuts.

She said: “Labour appear to be simply following the Tories lead.

“Harriet Harman’s decision to back the Tories’ deep cuts to tax credits is simply a continuation of Labour’s commitment to back George Osborne’s cuts, as they did when they voted to back his £30 billion austerity programme.

“In Scotland tax credits are overwhelmingly paid to working people. And in Scotland 95 per cent of tax credits are paid to families with children. So we should make no mistake about where the cuts are being targeted – so it makes it all the more worrying that Labour are supporting these cuts as we know they will hit working families hardest.”

Harman’s remarks did not receive widespread support from inside the Labour Party.

Leadership contenders Jeremy Corbyn, Yvette Cooper and Andy Burnham all rejected Harman’s position.

Corbyn said: “If it is proposed that Labour MPs are being asked to vote for the government’s plans to cut benefits to families I am not willing to vote for policies that will push more children in to poverty.

“Families are suffering enough. We shouldn’t play the government’s political games when the welfare of children is at stake.”

Yvette Cooper’s team said: “Yvette has made clear from the start that she does not believe the best way to reduce the deficit is to hit working families, reduce work incentives and push more children into poverty. She has said that the Tory plans for cutting tax credits and abandoning the child poverty target do both and Labour should strongly oppose them.”

Burnham’s spokesperson said: “Andy will not offer blanket opposition and, where we agree with a government policy, we won’t oppose for the sake of it. But these tax credit changes are regressive, they are wrong, they hit families in work and Andy opposes them.”

Scottish Labour MSP Neil Findlay urged more of the candidates for party leader to reject Harman’s position.

Harman will likely be expected to defend her remarks at a stormy meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party in Westminster tonight.

Her comments came as Business Secretary Sajid Javid rejected the assessment of the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies that the Budget was regressive because it hit the poorest households more than wealthier ones.