Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
18:59 - The House having divided: - Ayes: 458 / Noes: 104 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
The reasoned amendment on the Order Paper has not been selected.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Pat McFadden)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Core to our belief is the idea that no one, no matter their background, should be trapped by their circumstances. People should have the chance to make the best life they possibly can. Poverty is a barrier to that ambition, and it makes it much harder for people to achieve their full potential.
This legislation has its roots in the change made during the Conservative years to introduce the two-child limit on support for families on universal credit. Let us be clear at the start about what this was always about. It was never really about welfare reform, nor was it even about saving money. No, this was always, first and foremost, a political exercise—an attempt to set a trap for opponents, with children used as the pawns. This was all about the politics of dividing lines: between the so-called shirkers and strivers, or the old distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor. Politics first and policy second, every time.
Sir Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman has provoked me into responding. I served in the previous Conservative Government, and I was involved in all those decisions. There was a clear principle behind them: will people take responsibility for their own actions? There are thousands—millions—of people who choose not to have more children because they want to take responsibility for their lives, rather than the state doing so. With this change, the Government are saying to those people, “Not only will the state take responsibility, but you as the individual will have to pay for it through higher taxes.” That is the principle at stake here, and the Government are reversing a clear principled position taken by the last Government.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. Before the Secretary of State responds, let me say that there are many colleagues in the Chamber and I can understand how passionate this debate is, but let us try to keep the noise down when colleagues are contributing.
Pat McFadden
The right hon. Gentleman has set out the previous Government’s justification. I am about to explain why that did not stack up at the time, and why it certainly does not stack up after the experience of the policy.
We should begin by considering why no other neighbouring country has this two-child limit. Given that the policy was always primarily about politics, it is no surprise that it did not achieve the objectives that the right hon. Gentleman just tried to set out. The Tories claimed that this would lead to people making different choices about the number of children to have, but that did not happen. The family size premise was itself based on the fundamental misconception that there is a static group of people who are always on universal credit.
Pat McFadden
Not at the moment. This is not a static group; people’s circumstances change, marriages break up, spouses die and jobs can be lost. In fact, around half of the families who will benefit from the lifting of the two-child limit were not on universal credit when they had any of their children. This is not a static group of people, which drives directly at the heart of the argument that the right hon. Member for Hertsmere (Sir Oliver Dowden) tried to make.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
Twelve months ago, not only did the Government support the two-child cap, but they were busy suspending Labour Back Benchers who voted against it. Can the Secretary of State tell the House what it was about the Prime Minister’s weak position that caused him to change his mind?
Pat McFadden
I will come on to the timing of our decision, and exactly why it is right.
Pat McFadden
Not at the moment.
As I said, around half the families who will benefit were not on universal credit when they had any of their children. These are people who found themselves in need of help long after any decisions about family size had been taken.
No account was taken of the costs of the policy further down the line, such as lower educational attainment, worse mental health and lower earnings, perhaps for the whole of people’s working lives.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
Does the Secretary of State regret saying that whether the two-child cap on benefits causes harm is “open to debate”?
Pat McFadden
No, I do not regret anything I have ever said on this issue. All along in this debate, there has been an attempt to divide workers from non-workers—
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
On that point, will the Secretary of State give way?
Pat McFadden
I shall if the right hon. Lady shows a little patience.
Around 60% of the families affected by the current policy are in work, and of those who are not working, a significant number are affected by serious health conditions or caring responsibilities—circumstances in which any of us could find ourselves. As I have said, this was never really about work, decisions about family size or saving money; it was political through and through. It was children who paid the price, with 300,000 more of them going into poverty as a result.
Sir Desmond Swayne
It appears that those 300,000 were in poverty a year ago, but the Secretary of State has allowed that to persist till now. What has changed? It is not the fiscal situation, and it is not any room in the benefits budget. This is the Labour equivalent of Project Save Big Dog, is it not?
Pat McFadden
Timing matters, and if the right hon. Gentleman shows a little patience, I will tell him exactly why we have done this in the timeframe that we have.
All the policy did was force more children into poverty, alongside the Conservatives’ other key welfare measure of trapping the sick out of work. Even some voices on the right recognise the damage that this policy did. Former Tory Welfare Minister Lord Freud described it as “vicious” and said it had been forced on the Department for Work and Pensions by the Treasury at the time, and the former Conservative Home Secretary and new recruit for Reform, the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman), has said,
“Let’s abolish the two-child limit, eradicate child poverty for good”.
I do not know whether that is still her position—we will find out at tonight’s vote—but it seems that the party she has now joined wants to restore the two-child limit. Reform is importing not just failed Tory politicians, but failed Tory policies.
Between 2010, when the Conservatives came into office, and the summer of 2024 when they left it, the number of children in poverty had risen by some 900,000. That is something to ponder as Members on the Opposition Benches have their debate about whether or not Britain is broken. If it is, who was responsible? Who designed the welfare system that they tell us on a daily basis is broken? They did. Who broke the prisons system that we have had to rescue? They did. Who shook international confidence in our economy and its key institutions? They did. This is the inescapable problem with the Conservatives’ current position: an attack line that says, “We trashed the country and left you with a terrible inheritance,” might just not be the winning argument they think it is. Let them have their debate about whether Britain is broken while we get on with the task of fixing what they left behind.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
As my right hon. Friend has described, this is a crucial policy, but it is a downpayment on tackling other failures of the former Government, including the poor-quality and overcrowded housing that puts too many children in poverty of situation. Is he proud, as I am, that we now have a Labour Government who are tackling these issues and getting our children where they should be?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is right, and the point she makes is that we also tackle these issues piece by piece and over time.
I turn now to the question that people have asked: “Why not do this right away?” Here is the difference between government and opposition. The truth is that in opposition, it is easy to tally up everything that is wrong with the country and promise to reverse it, but a winning manifesto has to be more than a list of what is wrong.
Pat McFadden
Not at the moment. We spent plenty of time in opposition writing those lists—we had many years to do it—only to see them turn to dust on the morning of an election defeat. Good intentions were written off by the voters because the hard yards of winning their trust on the essentials of exercising power had not been done. Change comes only by earning the trust that is essential to victory, and it is because we did that that we are able to sit on the Government Benches and change anything at all, whether for children, low-paid workers or anyone else.
Our first job when we came into office was to stabilise the economy after the irresponsibility and chaos of the Tory years, and even after my right hon. Friend the Chancellor had done that, change still has to be paid for. That is why she was right to spell out at the Budget that this policy can only be introduced now, and can only be funded through a combination of savings from fraud and error in the benefits system, changes to the Motability scheme, and reform of online gambling taxation.
Wendy Morton
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I have tried my best to be patient, as he indicated I should be, but surely he agrees that there is only one way for him to pay for these increases, which is taxes?
Pat McFadden
My right hon. Friend the Chancellor spelled out at the Budget how this was going to be paid for. If the right hon. Lady did not hear me the first time, I am happy to repeat myself: savings from fraud and error in the benefits system, changes to the Motability scheme—which the Conservatives did not make when they were in power—and reform of online gambling taxation.
It was also right that we took the time to do the work on the child poverty strategy, which was so ably co-chaired by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education. That work meant that the strategy included wider policies on childcare, school holidays help and a number of other measures, as well as those that are in today’s Bill.
The Bill is about ensuring that children have the chance of a better life. It will mean 450,000 fewer children in poverty in the last year of this Parliament and, taken together with the other measures in the child poverty strategy, will lift an estimated 550,000 children out of poverty. This Labour Government will reduce child poverty, just as the last Labour Government did.
Ann Davies (Caerfyrddin) (PC)
I am glad that the UK Government are finally taking action on child poverty and removing the two-child cap on universal credit—a policy, of course, that Plaid has opposed from the start. However, more than one in five households affected by the two-child limit will not benefit because of the cap on benefits. Does the Secretary of State agree that the Government should now lift the benefit cap, so that every eligible household and every eligible child receives the full support this Bill sets out to provide?
Pat McFadden
I remind the hon. Lady that the benefit cap does not apply to families who are in work or who have a disabled child. It is in place, and that approach balances support and fairness without undermining incentives to work.
The Bill removes the need for the vile policy known as the rape clause, which is a feature that we inherited from the Conservative regime. Women will no longer have to relive terrible experiences to get support for their child. For the families who will benefit, this measure will help all children, regardless of the circumstances of their birth. My understanding is that it is the current position of the Conservative party to bring back the limit, and therefore to bring back that provision. Perhaps the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), can clarify that when she comes to speak, and perhaps Reform Members can clarify their position when they contribute to the debate.
The policy change made by this Bill is not just about the redistribution of money—it is not just about placing children on the right side of an income line in a spreadsheet. It is about changing the story of children’s lives. That is an investment worth making for the whole country. It is about giving children a genuine shot at life, so that they can do well at school, stay healthy, and contribute to their country and community as an adult. That is harder when children grow up poor, as they are less likely to do well at school, with less than a quarter of children in the lowest-income households getting five good GCSEs.
By the age of 30, those who grew up poor are likely to be earning about 25% less than their peers. They are four times more likely to experience mental health problems, with growing consequences for worklessness and for the benefits bill that we are seeing in today’s system. They are more likely not to be in education, employment or training—those numbers grew rapidly in the final years of the Conservatives’ time in power, and they did nothing about it. That is why we are reforming the system by changing the incentives of universal credit, ending a situation in which the sick have been signed off and written off, and increasing support to get disabled people into work. As Sir Charlie Mayfield estimated in his recent “Keep Britain Working” report,
“Someone leaving the workforce in their 20s can lose out on over £1 million in lifetime earnings—with the state incurring a similar cost”
to support them. These are the kinds of consequences that were not thought through when the Conservatives’ policy was introduced, but it is essential that they are part of our debate about changing it.
Investing in children’s potential today is about changing lives through better educational attainment, improved health and a better chance of a decent job. The most radical thing that a Government can do is enable people to change their own story. Our ambitions should go well beyond providing financially for people; they should be about providing the platform for that change, so there is a direct link between this Bill and the other things we are doing. We are providing more help with childcare for working parents in order to make work pay and to ease the choice between looking after children and taking up a job. That is in their interests and in the national interest—why should we lose the talents of those who have children?
The youth guarantee will help the young unemployed with training, work experience and ultimately a subsidised job, so that they know the pride and purpose that comes with having work. That is in their interests and in the national interest. We have more apprenticeships for young people, stopping the 40% decline in youth apprenticeship starts over the last decade. That is in their interests and in the national interest. Better life chances are part of the battle against the human and social cost of more and more young people being signed off sick and declared unfit for work. All these things will become more urgent as the population ages and we need more young workers to support the country. A better start in life is a bond between the generations. A good childhood is in all our interests and in the national interest.
This debate is part of a wider one in politics. In this debate and in others, we have seen a politics of division in this country that wants to set person against person and group against group, and I believe we are only in the foothills of it. We will see more of this division, both home-grown and imported from overseas, becoming ever harsher as it seeks to use rage to fuel itself and to win support. That is the battle to come, not just on this issue, but much more widely—and I want to make it clear today that we set ourselves against that politics, and make a clear and explicit choice to reject it.
Anger and division are not the fuel upon which this country’s future must be built. They will produce nothing. They will solve nothing. Indeed, they will only perpetuate the chaos in the country that people are so tired of. Instead, we embrace the mantle of hope to offer a chance and not a grievance—a society where we help each other up, rather than try to tear each other down, and where we say to those born into poor circumstances, “We will help you be the best you can be, not through altruism, but because we need you, we believe in you and we want your contribution.” That is in our interests and in the national interest. This is the fight to come between these two kinds of politics; that is what the change in this Bill is all about, and it is why I commend the Bill to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
Every week, millions of people up and down the country sit at their kitchen table and do the sums to work out what is coming in, what is going out, and what simply is not affordable. Sometimes the conversation may take a more serious turn to one of life’s biggest decisions: “Shall we start a family?” or “Can we afford another child?” Though romantics might love that to be a decision about whether people want the joy of bringing new life into this world, the reality is that many ask themselves, “Can we afford it?” They are not looking to someone else to help them make ends meet or pick up the bill; they are just doing the maths. That is a difficult conversation, but Members have to ask themselves a simple question before we vote: why should people on benefits get to avoid the hard choices faced by everyone else?
Let us be clear about what the two-child cap is and what it is not. The two-child cap restricts the additional universal credit a household can get to the amount for two children, with carefully considered exceptions, such as twins or non-consensual conception. It does not apply to child benefit. It says that there is a limit, and a point at which it is simply not fair to make taxpayers fund choices that they themselves cannot afford to make.
Dame Meg Hillier
What does the shadow Secretary of State have to say to my constituent, who found herself single with three children in temporary accommodation and then moved into a one-bedroom flat? In those overcrowded conditions, her youngest got ill, and she had to give up her good job to look after that child. This Bill is a lifeline for her. She wants to go back to work, but it is difficult. She did not choose to be in that situation—it was not a choice. And, for the record, most of my constituents do not have space for a kitchen table.
Helen Whately
I am sure that all of us in this House care about poverty and children’s prospects, but the answer is not to spend more, to hand out more money and to trap people in worklessness; the answer is to support people to work, and that is exactly the opposite of what the hon. Lady’s Government are doing.
We all know that bringing up children is expensive and important, but when working couples are having to make tough decisions about whether they can afford to start a family at all, they should not be asked to pay higher taxes to fund someone else to have a third, fourth or fifth child. Someone who is in work does not get a pay rise because they have another child. If we are serious about avoiding a benefits trap, whereby it pays more to be on welfare than in work, we should be honest about what happens if we lift the two-child cap. Benefits for individual households will rise by thousands. Nearly half a million households will receive around £5,000 more on average. A single parent on universal credit with five children could get an extra £10,000 without doing any work, taking their household income to more than £45,000, untaxed—people have to earn about £60,000 to get that income from work! Around 75,000 households will get between £10,000 and £21,000 extra as a result of this Bill. For some households, the extra money will be more than a full-time income, after tax, for someone on the minimum wage.
Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is an issue of fairness for the taxpayer if people are working hard in a job but being rewarded less than someone else getting benefits? That is why we need to keep the two-child benefit cap.
Helen Whately
It is exactly as my hon. Friend says. The extra money that some families will be receiving—without even working—would require such a high income to achieve through work. This simply exacerbates the poverty trap.
Several hon. Members rose—
Helen Whately
I will give way to Members on the Government Benches in a moment. I just ask them to think about the implications of the extra money that people will be receiving. Some people will—frankly and factually—calculate that they can boost their income far more by having children than by working. The best way out of poverty will not be work—[Interruption.] Government Members do not like to hear this, but I am afraid it is just rational. The best way out of poverty will not be work; it will be having babies.
I want to address the argument that lifting the cap is necessary because women are not having enough babies. We know that a declining birth rate is a cause for concern, but falling birth rates are driven by many factors, including changes in people’s aspirations, the poor jobs market, the cost of housing and childcare, the penalties that motherhood imposes on careers and the changing nature of 21st-century relationships. Children are important and we need to have more, but the answer to that complex problem is not, “Here’s some cash for having a kid.”
John Grady
We in the Treasury Committee looked at this issue extensively, and I am unaware of any particular evidence that supports the behavioural arguments the hon. Lady is setting out. In any event, why should 95,000 bright and talented children in Scotland be punished by an utterly cruel policy? Is it not fatuous to suggest that people are having children for money, as well as insulting to people in Glasgow and across the United Kingdom?
Helen Whately
The fact is that people do the sums. That is the reality of the world we live in. The hon. Gentleman indicated that he is a member of the Treasury Committee, so he must be interested—even though he is looking at his phone—in these unavoidable questions. Where will the £3 billion to fund this Bill come from? Where will the £14 billion over a five-year period come from? We all know where it will come from: taxpayers—either today’s or tomorrow’s—and the men and women who get up every morning, go to work, pay their bills and do the right thing. In the last Budget, as she knows, the Chancellor made a deliberate political choice: to raise taxes on people who work and save, so that millions who do not work will receive more in benefits. Working families already make hard choices. Many already strive and struggle to live within their means. This Bill asks them to shoulder even more.
Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)
The shadow Secretary of State must know that the vast majority of families in poverty include at least one adult in work. She asks how this Bill is being paid for. Well, it is being paid for by increased taxes on gambling giants. Would it not be more truthful to say that the hon. Lady is on the side of gambling giants rather than children in poverty?
Helen Whately
Unfortunately, the hon. Lady does not seem to understand that hypothecated taxes are not a thing. What she has said simply does not make sense. The fact is that this Bill will cost the Government money, so it will cost taxpayers money, either now or in the future. That is simply the way it works.
Sir Desmond Swayne
We now hear shouts of “cruelty” and “the rape clause”, but I see only one of the seven who were suspended sitting on the Labour Benches. The rest of them kept their heads down and voted to perpetuate what they now call cruelty and the rape clause. How do they sleep at night?
Helen Whately
My right hon. Friend has indeed made a significant point about the strange position in which so many Labour Members find themselves. Having previously voted against lifting the cap, here they are now, delighted about lifting it.
Labour Members say that the Bill will end child poverty. They have read that increasing handouts will decrease the metric called relative poverty. However, relative poverty is a deeply misleading measure. It is not an accurate measure of living standards. It tells us nothing about whether people have enough to live on, or whether children will have better life chances. It can get worse when the country gets richer, even when living standards for the very poorest are rising, and it can look better when people are getting poorer. That is not progress; it is levelling down. Throwing money at one flawed metric is not a strategy. In fact, it risks doing the opposite of what Ministers claim to want, trapping families in long-term dependency rather than lifting them out of it.
There is a proven way in which to improve children’s life chances, and that is work. Work allows parents to provide for their families, to pay the rent or mortgage, to put food on the table and clothes on their children’s backs, to set an example to their children, and to create structure and routine in their households. The Centre for Social Justice has found that children in workless households are four times more likely to be materially deprived, but under this Government the number of children growing up in workless households has risen at the fastest rate on record, and has now reached 1.5 million. Contrast that with our record, Madam Deputy Speaker. From 2014 onwards, the number of children in workless households fell year on year. We lifted a million people out of absolute poverty, including 100,000 children, and we drove unemployment down to historic lows.
Under this Labour Government, unemployment is rising month after month, so, sadly, the number of children in workless households will continue to increase. Inflation is up as well, to almost double the level that the Government inherited. Higher inflation means that the money in your pocket is worth less: in other words, you are poorer. Fewer jobs, more unemployment, a higher cost of living—that is what the Government are doing to people. I say this to them: you do not lift children out of poverty by making the whole country poorer.
Stuart Anderson (South Shropshire) (Con)
I am enjoying listening to Members who say they have met constituents who have suffered hard times. I grew up in hard times, on welfare, through the death of a parent, watching my mum go without food to feed us. There is no possible way, given that the cuts to benefits have been pulled, that the country can afford this. We will have no defence of the realm. South Shropshire residents will start going without. There is no feasible way to fund this measure, whichever way Labour Members look at it. Does my hon. Friend agree with me?
Helen Whately
My hon. Friend has made the important point that no other party in the Chamber seems to realise what a serious financial position the country is in. We have to ask ourselves hard questions about what the country can afford.
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
We on the Labour Benches at least understand the historical consistency:186 years ago the Tories made economic arguments against stopping children being sent up chimneys, and 186 years later they are making the same arguments, about stopping children being put into poverty. Same old Tories, nearly 200 years later!
Helen Whately
If the hon. Gentleman listens to what I am about to say about the back and forth on this policy on his side of the House, he will see that he should think a bit harder before talking about “consistency”.
So what is this Bill really about? If Labour truly believes that lifting the two-child limit is essential to tackling poverty, why did it take the Prime Minister 18 months to do it? Years ago he called the cap “punitive” and promised to scrap it, but then, once he had secured the leadership of the Labour party, he changed that tune. He said that Labour was not going to abolish the two-child limit. His Chancellor, who is sitting on the Front Bench, said that it was unaffordable. Just six months ago, the Government even suspended the whip from MPs who voted to lift the cap, but now that the Prime Minister’s leadership is under threat, it is the end for the cap. How long will it be before he goes the same way? That is the real reason we are debating the Bill today: we have a weak Prime Minister, running scared from his left-wing Back Benchers.
Talking of the left wing, I expect that Labour will be joined in the Division Lobby later by some of the Opposition Members sitting to the left of me. No doubt the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru will also be competing to see who can be the most generous with other people’s money. Reform UK has jumped on the welfare spending bandwagon too. You will have noticed, Madam Deputy Speaker, that we have not tabled a reasoned amendment today, not because we think that the Bill is perfect—I hope that is clear—but because any amendment would still leave us with a watered-down version of the cap. Other parties have got in a right muddle on this—one in particular—but to us it is clear and simple: the cap should stay. Anything else is a worse policy. Amending the Bill is not the right answer; the House should just vote it down.
First and foremost, I have argued against the Bill on the grounds of fairness, but there is another reason to vote against it. More than 50% of households now receive more from the state than they pay in. The benefits bill is ballooning. Health and disability benefits alone are set to reach £100 billion by the end of the decade—more than we spend on defence, education or policing. The benefits bill is a ticking time bomb. We have to start living within our means. Other parties are simply in denial about the situation that we face in our country. The Conservatives are the only party that recognises how serious this is. We would not be spending more on benefits; in fact, we have explained how we would be saving £23 billion. We would stop giving benefits to foreign nationals, stop giving benefits for lower-level mental health problems and milder neurodiversity, stop the abuse of Motability, and bring back face-to-face assessments. We would get the benefits bill under control, and back people to work.
Labour claims to be compassionate, but there is nothing compassionate about making welfare the rational choice, nothing compassionate about rewarding dependency over work, and nothing compassionate about saddling working families with higher taxes to fund political U-turns. Outside this place, people can see what is happening. They know when a system is unfair. They know when a Government have lost their way. They know when a Prime Minister’s time is up. Members should not be enticed by his final throws. They should step back and do what is right for the country. They should back people who do the right thing, back jobs and work and lower taxes, and back living within our means and raising the standard of living for everyone, rather than backing a policy that will add billions to the benefits bill and trap parents in a downward spiral of dependency. This Bill does not end poverty. It entrenches it, so we oppose it.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Of the measures brought forward in this Government’s Budget last year, the abolition of the two-child limit is the one that most fills me with hope and more than a little pride, so I thank the Government for listening to so many of us who raised this issue as a concern.
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has reminded us, child poverty is not just about children going hungry once in a while, or not being able to buy the designer trainers they want. For every 1% increase in child poverty, more babies die before their first birthday. In fact, this causal link has been quantified, and it amounts to 5.8 additional deaths per 100,000 live births. A baby born into a poor family is five times more likely to die than a baby born into a wealthy one. I ask Opposition Members to consider that when they make their interventions and speeches.
If such children are lucky enough to survive their first year, they will be more likely to suffer poor physical and mental ill health and more likely to end up as an emergency hospital admission. The impacts on their neurological development as they grow are profound. How the brain makes its neural connections changes because of the stress and adversity that children go through. In turn, that affects behaviour, cognitive development and achievements in school. These disadvantages continue into adolescence and adulthood, so every aspect of children’s lives is affected.
We are rightly concerned about the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training, and nearly 1 million 16 to 24-year-olds are NEETs. We must look at the evidence for why that is, not just jump to conclusions for political expediency. There is strong evidence from the UK millennium cohort study that persistent exposure to poverty and childhood adversity, including poor parental mental health, means that such people are five times more likely to be NEET. It is estimated that more than half—nearly 53%—of current NEET cases are attributable to persistent exposure to poverty and childhood adversity. It is not because young people fancy a duvet day, and I really think it is disgraceful that such phrases are repeated in the media. This pattern goes on right through adolescence and young adulthood, and it affects people’s earning capacity, as we have heard.
When in government, the Conservatives were warned repeatedly. I was a shadow Work and Pensions Minister, and I represented the Labour party during the passage of the original legislation, so I know they had repeated warnings. I chaired an all-party parliamentary group that raised the issue, and we engaged with the Faculty of Public Health, which did an impact analysis to identify the harms that would take place. We also did a retrospective analysis to show the damage the policy was having. That legislation introduced not only the two-child limit and the benefit cap, but the benefit freeze—we must not forget the benefit freeze—and the harms those policies have caused to the lives of children, who are now our young adults, are absolutely shameful.
Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)
This issue is one of the things we have looked at in the Work and Pensions Committee, and the evidence is quite clear that we must remove the two-child benefit cap and enable long-term investment in our young people. Those young people in poverty suffer extraordinarily, and we need to give them better life chances.
Debbie Abrahams
Absolutely; my hon. Friend is a wonderful member of the Select Committee, and I thank her for that. In particular, she is very active on our joint inquiry with the Education Committee.
In the space of the 15 years between 2010 and when we were elected in 2024, child poverty escalated from 3.9 million children, or 29%, to 4.3 million, or 31%. To go back to the calculation at the beginning of my speech, the impact on families that have been bereaved as a consequence of the unfortunate position they found themselves in financially should not be underestimated. Like many of us, I have constituents who have grown up under the clouds and chains of austerity, while clinging on to the hope that things could get better. That hope is why we are here on these Labour Benches, and we know how important what we are now doing is in rebuilding trust with the people who invested their vote in us and trusted us to deliver for them.
I cannot thank the Government enough for doing this, but as has been said, it is a down payment and there needs to be more. We can overturn the horrors of the last 15 years. We have done so in the past, and we can again. We have prepared the ground for a better Britain, and this year we will start to see children and their families flourish, but I recognise that this is only the first step. We are lifting 450,000 to 500,000 children out of poverty, which is fantastic, but that is only about 10% of all the children living in poverty, and we need to have our eyes on the remaining 90%. This is an important first step, but we must say that it is only the first step.
The Chair of the Education Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), and I are looking forward to exploring just how we can do more. As I have previously said, we need to be thinking beyond individual departmental budgets. Tackling child poverty needs a whole-system Government approach, which includes how we budget and how the Office for Budget Responsibility scores Budgets. We need to use evidence much better in our policy planning. Our impact analyses are very narrow, and do not reflect how people experience poverty and the impacts that that has not just on the DWP, but on other Departments. That needs to change.
Finally, when unequivocal evidence is presented to us—some of the evidence is only just emerging; the UK millennium cohort study that I mentioned came on stream only in the last six or seven months—it is right that we respond to it. That is a strength, not a weakness, and it demonstrates humility and integrity. Poverty and inequality are not inevitable; they are political choices driven by values, and when the evidence changes, so should our decisions.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. As so many Members wish to contribute, Back Benchers will be on a speaking limit, which will start at five and a half minutes. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a society that is free, open and fair, and a society in which no one is enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity. That is why it is in our DNA to be against the two-child limit. There are 4.5 million children living in poverty in the UK. As somebody with a passion for the future of our children—looked-after children, adopted children and so forth—I know they are the responsibility of us all, and we should have a passion for supporting our youngsters, because children are 20% of our population, but 100% of our future.
We must reflect on the fact that this Dickensian policy of judging families was brought in by the Conservatives. It is judging because, as we have heard, a parent may find themselves in a position beyond their control—when a family member or the other parent is suddenly taken ill or, even worse, dies—and they are left alone to provide for their youngsters in really difficult circumstances. Equally, why should we decide as a society that, because they are the third or fourth child, we value them less? Such a belief seems morally bankrupt. It is so important that we value our children because they are our future. It is also very sad that seven Labour Members had the Whip suspended for doing the right thing and backing the end of the two-child limit.
I want to reflect a little more on what this means in Torbay. I represent one of the most deprived constituencies in the south-west of England. When I visited a school in Paignton, the headteacher told me how children turn up cold, tired and hungry. It has to provide warm clothes for the youngsters, because parents cannot afford them. It has to provide food for the youngsters. The headteacher was taking on the incredible altruism of being a foster carer, so that if a child did need support, she would have the qualifications to step in and support the family in need.
Jennie and I love going to schools, Jennie in particular—the kids enjoy Jennie more than me, I am sure. Having a chat with youngsters about what they like and do not like about living in their town is a special thing to do, whether as a councillor or a Member of Parliament. Usually, one hears about litter, the environment, graffiti, older kids swearing and so on. In Torquay, in Barton Hill academy, what I found really disturbing was how the nine and 10-year-olds were talking about the cost of living crisis. They were worried about mum, who could not quite afford to put enough petrol in the car, and utility bills were worrying their parents. They told me they were not doing so many of the nice things they used to do a couple of years ago, because mum and dad said they could not afford it any more.
Dame Meg Hillier
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. It was, of course, his party, in coalition, that delivered austerity and delivered this policy. Does he have anything to say to the British public about that period of his party’s history?
Steve Darling
I thank the hon. Member for her non-partisan intervention. The Liberal Democrats opposed the two-child limit. We are on the record as doing that and I am delighted we did so. A Joseph Rowntree Foundation report published last week highlights how tackling poverty has flatlined since 2005, so the Liberal Democrats welcome this step forward in ending the two-child limit.
This measure is not just about children; it is about the future of our country and investing in people and believing in them. The Secretary of State alluded to the fact that youngsters have worse education outcomes, higher levels of mental health challenges later in life, and are unable to contribute to society as strongly as they could. The taxman takes less from them later in life, because their jobs are not so profitable.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)
I am slightly surprised that the hon. Gentleman is claiming that less is taken off them. Student loans, which could have received this £3 billion that this change will cost, are effectively taxing young people at 70% or 71%. Does he not think that that tax rate is high enough?
Steve Darling
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his thoughts on that. I remind my colleague that shortly after the coalition Government, the Conservatives stripped away an awful lot of the safeguards around student loans, and that continues. It is not a happy situation for many students up and down the country that the Tories robbed them of those safeguards.
On a visit to Torbay hospital, I spoke to one of its senior directors. She sees her role as extremely important, because it is not just about treating people but tackling deprivation in Torbay. She comes across some patients who believe that a lifespan of up to around 60-something is adequate. That reflects the levels of deprivation in my community, which this measure will help to tackle. It will lift 2,000 children out of poverty in Torbay. We should have high ambitions for our country. As Liberal Democrats, we believe the best days of our country are ahead of us. By lifting the two-child limit, we include more people in a brighter future.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling). I appreciate the Liberal Democrats’ support for lifting the two-child limit.
I cannot express enough how delighted I am to speak in this debate, as these changes will make a real tangible difference to the lives of children and families across our country. The cost of living, standards of living and striving to live above the poverty line are a concern, and such a struggle for so many people and families. I campaigned to lift the two-child limit prior to being a Member, and I have done so since becoming a Member. I hear of families with a roof over their head, but no carpet under their feet; a window to look out of, but no thick curtains to keep out the draft. It is miserable when you are cold, poor and uncomfortable, and anything and everything the Government do to make life easier for communities is the right thing to do.
I recently spoke to a headteacher at a local school in my constituency that serves one of the most deprived areas. I found out that teachers are using their own money to buy children essential items, such as sanitary products, underwear and tights. Of course, they need to do that because the children need them. We on the Labour Benches are right: we are compassionate about children, compared with Members opposite. I love and applaud the teachers and the school for their kindness and for the discreet way in which they help children. I applaud all schools that do this for children, but children should not be in that situation in the first place. In Lewisham, we have a shop called the Bank of Things, where secondary school children can receive free essential items such as toiletry products, pens, paper and even school uniform.
At the heart of this issue, I know parents wish to provide for children, but some just do not have the means to do so. In fact, in my constituency, 65% of children living in poverty have at least one parent in work, so this is absolutely not about parents who do not want to work. It is why the broader child poverty strategy is so vital. Increases to the national living wage, strengthening workers’ rights through the Employment Rights Act 2025, expanded free childcare for working parents, reducing the cost of school uniforms, and building more council homes—these measures and more work together to ensure that work pays, and that parents and carers can provide for their families with dignity.
Teachers and school staff are also purchasing lunch for children whose parents cannot afford it, not because they want to but because the free school meals system put in place by this Government, including to all those on universal credit, still leaves some families behind.
This Government’s fair repayment rate policy also supports households with debts, by reducing the maximum amount that can be deducted from universal credit from 25% to 15%. The previous Conservative Government were despicable in their actions and what they launched at children. The two-child limit cap and universal credit payment deductions at 25% were wrong. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has said that, as well removing the two-child limit cap, a protected minimum floor to universal credit is also needed. That will reverse declining living standards for families with children and get children out of poverty.
Dame Meg Hillier
My hon. Friend rightly highlights that this is partly about the wider structure, and it is also about the number of parents who are in work. Does she not agree that part of our strategy on child poverty is also about supporting parents into better-paid work, so they can continue to support their families and their children?
Janet Daby
My hon. Friend is absolutely correct; it is about supporting parents into better-paid work.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Lady. May I put on record my thanks to her for her words, the Secretary of State for his commitment and the Labour Government for bringing this change forward? Some 50,000 children in Northern Ireland, out of 13,000 households, will benefit—out of child poverty and into a better standard of living. That has to be good news. If anybody is against that, there is something wrong with them.
Janet Daby
I thank my hon. Friend—I call him that even though he sits on the other side of the House—for stating that so eloquently and accurately.
This means that the previous Conservative Government got it wrong. I would also add that with rents rising and mortgages increasing, they got it wrong. Who suffers? It is babies, toddlers, primary and secondary school children, and that is wrong. Unlike the previous Government, this Government accept the overwhelming scale of this challenge. I am sure that Ministers will agree that more still needs to be done.
To bring further reality to the situation, my own son has paid for a schoolfriend’s lunch on more than one occasion when they have not had enough money on their lanyard. I am sure that many other children also share food with their friends because they have compassion and do not want their friends to go hungry.
I welcome the Government’s decision to lift the two-child benefit cap, which will provide crucial support to an estimated 3,530 children across my constituency. It is a significant step and I commend the Government for taking it.
Breakfast clubs are absolutely fantastic, but they are limited to primary schools, meaning that secondary school children miss out. There could be three children from the same household where two children receive breakfast at primary school but the other goes hungry at secondary school. That is not right. Parents should not have to worry about their ability to feed their children and teachers should not have to subsidise parents or the state by feeding their pupils.
As I come to an end, I must mention the remarkable football player Marcus Rashford, who knew what it was like to go hungry as a child and is now dedicated to ensuring that it does not happen to other children. I respect his efforts to reduce child poverty. I ask this Government to make the necessary effort to keep children out of poverty and to support them to ensure they have a full stomach and reach their full potential in life.
Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)
At its heart, this debate is about choices, and the choice before us today is whether we believe that compassion is best expressed through limitless expenditure or through a system that is fair, responsible and worthy of the people who fund it. We in this House all share the same objective: we want every child—[Interruption.] Well, I hope we do, because we want every child in every corner of this country to have hope and opportunity in their future. If we are truly honest, a good society is measured not by how much it spends, but by how wisely it spends, and that is where the Bill does not meet the test before it.
Dr Shastri-Hurst
I will make some progress.
I will start with a real-life experience from my own constituency. Some months ago, I met a couple at a community event, both of whom were in work and clearly raising their children with a great deal of pride and care. They spoke to me with a quiet determination about the sacrifices they were forced to make: no foreign holidays, no luxuries, often working long hours and, of course, careful budgeting of the household income. Their message was that they did not expect the state to intervene on their behalf; they were not asking for anything special. Instead, they were merely asking for fairness, and fairness is what is at stake today.
The two-child limit rests on the simple principle that the welfare system should reflect the real choices faced by working families up and down the country. Across the United Kingdom, parents weigh responsibility against aspiration every day, asking themselves whether they can provide, whether they can sustain and whether they can provide their children with security.
Debbie Abrahams
The hon. Gentleman just spoke of whether or not the expenditure was wise. He also spoke about choices. I do not know whether he heard my speech, but children who are born into poor families are five times—five times—more likely to die just because they are poor than children in families with a little more income. Is it fair to a child if they die just because they were born into a poor family? I cannot understand the hon. Gentleman’s logic.
Dr Shastri-Hurst
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, but this is about choices. We come to this place to make choices about how we spend taxpayers’ money to ensure that it is fair across the board. We can all bring moving individual stories, but there is the reality of how we support Government expenditure across the board so that it is fair and equitable and ensures that families up and down the country are having to make similar choices every single day.
What this Bill tells the country is that choices no longer matter. It tells the taxpayer that restraint is optional. It tells Government that limits are now outdated. The Government say that the Bill will reduce child poverty—I understand that, and I respect that intention—but poverty is not conquered by cheque books alone. It is conquered by work, education, stability and ambition. It is conquered when families are supported to stand tall instead of being encouraged to lean forever.
For far too long, politics has fallen into the trap of believing that every social problem has a fiscal solution—if only we spend more money, subsidise a little more or borrow more—but history teaches us a much harder lesson. A society that confuses help with dependency does not liberate the poor, but simply imprisons them.
The Bill will cost approximately £3 billion a year, which will be paid not by abstractions, but by people—by the nurse working a night shift, the self-employed plumber, the shop worker who is saving for a deposit or the small business owner who is keeping three other people in employment. Those people are entitled to ask whether this is fair. Is it fair that they have to calculate every single pound while the state abandons calculation altogether? I simply do not believe it is.
Dame Meg Hillier
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions made clear in his speech the number of people who make these choices and decisions and then, later on, find themselves on universal credit through changes in circumstances. This is a safety net. It is not the position of Labour or the Government that people with children should not work and should not be supported into work; that is very much part of the equation. Will the hon. Gentleman reflect on that and think about what happens when people’s circumstances change? This is a safety net—a leg up—not a handout.
Dr Shastri-Hurst
It would be a safety net if it provided a short-term boost. What it does instead is provide an endless cheque book without any checks and balances in place. If there was a sunset clause, that would be different, but there is not.
The two-child limit was about more than blame; it was about balance. It recognised that a welfare system without boundaries eventually loses legitimacy altogether, and when legitimacy is lost, discourse soon follows. That is the great unspoken risk of this Bill: it does not merely expand spending, but weakens trust; it widens the gap between those who give and those who receive and, in doing so, puts the whole settlement at risk.
What is fundamentally missing from this Bill is any serious strategy for mobility. Where are the plans for skills, for progression, for family stability and for moving people from welfare into work? Instead, the Bill simply offers the politics of reassurance without reform, comfort without challenge, spending without strategy and debt without direction.
The Conservatives recognise the importance of lifting people up, of not holding them down and of providing opportunity and not permanent subsidy. The true measure of social justice is not how many people we support, but, crucially, how many people we no longer need to support. The question before us, therefore, is whether we will tackle poverty at its root or merely manage it year after year; whether we will build a system that strengthens families or one that substitutes for them; and whether we will choose the easy road or the responsible one. This Bill chooses the easy road—it chooses sentiment over structure, expansion over reform and today over tomorrow. I simply cannot support that choice.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool Riverside) (Lab)
I really believe the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Sir Mel Stride), and other Opposition Members live in an alternate universe, because they are totally detached from the reality of my constituents in Liverpool Riverside.
It is with great pride that I rise today in support of our Bill to lift the two-child cap—a campaign that has long been close to my heart. Lifting half a million children immediately out of poverty has to be a great thing for this country. As the MP for Liverpool Riverside, I have had child poverty at the top of my agenda since coming into Parliament over six years ago.
Kim Johnson
No, thank you.
It saddens and appals me that, in the sixth richest economy in the world, one in every two children in my constituency lives in poverty. That is a statistic that should shame everybody.
It is a shame that it has taken so long to reverse the draconian cap that was driving hundreds of families into poverty every single month. Children’s charities and organisations, the Children’s Commissioner and politicians of every background were united in calling for that as their No. 1 priority for reversing trends in child poverty, which exploded, as we all know, under the Tory austerity measures. The facts are clear and indisputable.
I pay tribute in particular to the End Child Poverty coalition, co-ordinated by Rachel Walters, the Child Poverty Action Group and the National Education Union, which I have worked with closely throughout my time in Parliament to champion support for children living in poverty and, in particular, to campaign against the two-child cap. Without their incredible work to make it impossible for this Government to ignore the necessity of lifting the two-child cap, I fear it may never have happened. I also pay tribute to the schools in my Liverpool Riverside constituency, which go over and above every single day to support children and families who are living in poverty.
I take this opportunity to highlight research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which estimates that 1.5 million children in families with migrant parents live in poverty. That makes up over a third of the total number of children living in poverty. In large part, that is driven by the no recourse to public funds policy, with half of the children living in families that fall under that policy living in poverty. Research by the Institute for Public Policy Research also shows that those children face a far higher risk of very deep poverty.
As the Government have laid out in today’s debate, no child should have their life opportunity limited by the conditions they were born into. It therefore follows that we must go further to alleviate child poverty and row back on the policies, such as no recourse to public funds, that still play a major role in systematically driving large numbers of families into poverty.
Before I came into this place, I worked for the Department for Education supporting the development of Sure Start programmes across the north-west. I know at first hand the difference that supporting a young family can make to those children’s life chances and the benefits of early intervention and integrated provision. It is a record that Labour is rightly proud of, but one that should spur us to recreate and go even further now that we are in government again.
Lifting the two-child cap in full is a brilliant win for our campaigners and will be life-changing for millions of children who need the extra support to achieve their full potential. It will be a major boost for local economies, putting money immediately and directly in the pockets of families who will go out and spend it productively. I am proud to be part of a Labour Government who have taken such a bold and vital step, but now we need to go further in redistributing the vast wealth that this country has to ensure that our communities can flourish and no child is left behind. Fourteen years of the Tory austerity tax on living standards and the systematic dismantling of our public services needs to be met with a bold Labour programme of taxing wealth, renationalising our public services and providing them with proper funding.
We still have children who are growing up with diseases that we thought had been consigned to the Victorian era, including rickets and scarlet fever, made possible by a crisis in child poverty and malnutrition. Lifting the two-child cap is a good start, but Labour cannot be complacent about the monumental challenges that we face in government to boost living standards, tackle inequalities and start putting power and wealth back in the hands of working people. Poverty is a political choice; it is about choosing the interests of the many over the influence of the few. I am proud that we made the right choice.
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
Fairness matters, not only to those receiving the support but to those making the difficult choices without it. During the short time I have, I will talk about the principles and then the context.
I come to this subject thinking about the publican in my constituency who has two children and who wakes up in the morning, leaves their house in Barwell and goes to their business. They have seen their national insurance contributions rise, their valuation has changed and the tax has gone up on that, the rate relief has been withdrawn from them and they have seen the minimum wage go up. Those are all costs that they are having to consider. What about the independent pharmacist on the high street, who gets up and goes to work in Hinckley, having to face the fact that national insurance contribution costs are going up?
Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman mentions the local pharmacist. The local pharmacist in my constituency is my twin sister. She put herself through a degree in pharmacy while on universal credit as a single parent of three children. That was not her choice; it was a position that was thrust upon her. What would the hon. Member say to people like her?
Dr Evans
I would credit her. She is a credit to the hon. Gentleman’s family for what she has managed to achieve.
The key point I am trying to get to is that, when those people leave their doorstep, is it fair that the choice they have made to have only two children is simply thrown out the window, because an extra £3,650 is now being given to the parent of the third and fourth child next door, simply for not going to work? That is not fair, and that is the heart of the principle.
At the end of the day, the welfare state works best when it is a bridge to work and not a substitute for it. We have often heard about the working poor.
Clive Lewis
I am listening to the hon. Gentleman. Conservative Members always seem to portray this as an individual moral failing. That is how they see welfare, when actually it is about a collective insurance against economic risk. That is how we see it. You see it as a moral issue; we see it as an economic one.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. It is not me who is being referred to; it is the hon. Gentleman.
Dr Evans
That is far from the truth. I am simply arguing that we need to be fair to those who need the system to support them and those who contribute to it. I worry that we are pulling at the fabric here.
It is interesting that the debate in the House is slanted towards the Labour view, because they have the numbers. If we look at the public polling, however, we know that, consistently, 60% of the public support the cap and only 30% want it to be taken away. Why is that? Fundamentally, they understand that there has to be give and take. The worry here is that someone will suddenly get £3,650 with no contractual change within society to better themselves.
The money could be better spent. To take an example from the last Government, in 2021 they changed the UC slider from 63% to 55% to encourage work. That cost about £2.5 billion; we are talking about £3 billion today. We have heard from the Government how this will be paid for. It is not hypothecated. The pharmacist I was talking about and the sister of the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) will pay for this, as will the publican who goes out to work. They will see their taxes rise. That is the contract that I am worried about.
Joy Morrissey
It is an issue of fairness. The people of Beaconsfield, Marlow and the south Bucks villages have seen their taxes go up and they are seeing those taxes being given to people who are not working. It is unfair.
Dr Evans
That is exactly right. The public will stand for a generous safety net, but they will not stand for people not trying to take things forward. I worry that, despite this Government’s talk of employment rights, the chances for employment and the working poor, more people are out of work under this very Government due to the choices they are making. That is fundamental to today’s debate, and trying to leverage morality into it misses the reality of responsibility. Every family in this country make fiscal choices and expect to behave responsibly, and so should the Government who lead them. That is the crux of the matter.
In the time I have left, I will move on to the context. If this were a moral crusade, as we have heard the Prime Minister say, he would have done it in his very first Budget; he would have made that choice. However, as we have heard from other Members, when this policy was put forward after the new Government came in, 40-odd MPs did not vote and seven Labour Members had the Whip removed.
If we are talking about poverty, one thing that has not been raised in the debate so far is the winter fuel payments policy. The Government’s own analysis said that it would put 50,000 pensioners into absolute poverty and 100,000 into relative poverty. So there is a dichotomy here, and it is about choices. Government Members seem to say that if we are going to solve poverty, we need to focus on one area, yet they all voted to take the fuel payments away—[Interruption.] I hear chuntering from the other side about means-testing, but that did not happen until later when there was a climbdown.
The key thing is that these are difficult choices that have to be made. I worry that the public see straight through what is going on. They need fairness in the system. They do not need a vote to be held to try to placate the Back Benchers of a failing Prime Minister. If this truly was the mission of the Prime Minister at the start, he would have done it straightaway.
Dame Meg Hillier
Let us be clear: this Government came in with a plan to tackle child poverty, but quite rightly set up a taskforce to deal with it under two excellent Secretaries of State, and now with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security and Disability at the helm as well. That is why this policy has happened now and did not happen immediately. It would have been a bad mistake to have dealt with this in a piecemeal fashion. Instead, we now have a whole strategy, of which this is a part, as is helping parents into work.
Dr Evans
Why, in that case, was the Whip removed from Labour Members? Why is there no contingency in the Bill to ensure that someone is progressing through the system? We have heard time and again from Members on both sides of the House that it is not only a safety net but a springboard. I come back to my point that if the Government want to make a difference, they could change the rating on universal credit to encourage more people into work, but that is not happening. That would help to support people who are in work but who are impoverished. The last Government brought in the household support fund to ensure that there was immediate support. I am pleased that the Government are bringing forward some form of contingency, but we still have not seen what that looks like. That will be a concern for people.
I shall end where I began. This system has to be fair to those who are getting the support, but also to those who are paying for it. At the end of the day, a family lives within its constraints and so should a country. This Bill does nothing but the opposite, and that is my concern.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
I am very proud to support the Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill. It will tackle child poverty and restore basic fairness to our social security system. I, like many other Labour Members, have been campaigning on this issue since I became an MP. I thank the Child Poverty Action Group and the Trussell Trust, as well as the food bank volunteers who have been in to lobby me about this issue for a very long time. This win is for the families in my constituency who I see in my surgeries and in their homes. I think of one family who literally move a light bulb around from room to room because they are so scared of the cost of using additional electricity. That is just one example of the real impact that poverty has on a family.
I am glad that we are dismantling this cruel and unfair policy today, and that we are continuing the job of fixing a broken system, set up by the Conservatives, that has led to children not having the basics or the opportunities that everyone in our country should have. Six months after this policy was brought in nine years ago, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty, Philip Alston, visited the UK and produced a report on the poverty levels that he found here. He said that we had a
“punitive, mean spirited, and often callous”
benefit system and that the high levels of child poverty were not inevitable but a “political choice”. That was back in 2018.
Every single day since the Conservatives forced this two-child benefit cap through, 109 children have been pushed into poverty, not because of anything they or their parents have done but because an arbitrary policy denied them the support they need. It was always indefensible. Because of the failings of the Conservative Government, child poverty in the UK has risen faster than in 37 other high-income countries over the past decade. That is a national disgrace.
Removing this limit will lift 450,000 children out of poverty by 2029. That is what real, measurable change looks like. I was on the child poverty taskforce for over a year, and we really drilled down into what could make the most difference. Scrapping the two-child benefit cap was always at the top of the measures. I am proud that our strategy also brings in many other ways in which we can support families.
We know who is being hit the hardest by this policy, with 68% of the families affected having a child under five. The early years shape everything that follows: health, education and life chances. Inequality in childhood becomes inequality for life. This Bill gives us the chance to break that cycle. The latest universal credit data shows the scale of the damage. In April 2025, 700 households in Putney were denied a child element for at least one child because of this policy. That meant that 900 children received no support and 2,490 children in total were living in households hit by the two-child limit. Across Wandsworth, the picture was even starker, with 1,820 households affected, 2,330 children denied support and a total of 6,540 children living in households impacted by this cruel rule.
It is a rule based on the fiction that families in poverty plan before they have children—that they plan ahead to be in poverty for the long term and decide on the number of children they will have in their loving family on the basis of that—rather than a policy that is there for families whenever they are in real need. We have got those parents’ backs and we have got those children’s backs, no matter what number they come in their family. Scrapping the two-child limit will be transformative for those families and for their communities. It will change whole disadvantaged communities in my constituency, across London and across the United Kingdom, who all currently pay the price for the high numbers of children in poverty, whether those children are in their own family or not.
The Bill is part of this Government’s wider mission to build a fairer country; to support, not penalise, families; to support parents into secure and better paid work; to deliver more affordable homes; to cut the cost of living; and to give every child the best possible start in life.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Member on her speech. Evidence shows that the two-child limit has not changed fertility or employment but that it has coincided, sadly, with a disproportionate rise in abortions among mothers with two or more children. Does she agree that removing the two-child limit will better support mums and help to ensure that no woman feels pushed towards an abortion because she cannot afford another child?
Fleur Anderson
The hon. Member highlights one of the many painful decisions that people have to make on the back of this policy, such as decisions about heating or eating and about what to do in their families. She also highlights the fact that the whole of Northern Ireland will benefit from this Bill as well. We need to bring every child across the whole of the United Kingdom up, and lifting this policy will do that. It is fair across every part of the United Kingdom for all the families who are affected. I thank her for raising a different aspect that this policy has introduced.
I am proud to support the Bill, and I urge Members across the House to do the same.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
I will touch briefly on the Conservatives’ position and then turn to the Bill itself.
The Conservatives have at least been consistent on this policy—consistently cruel. I would point out the level of detachment with the reality faced by so many families in my constituency. The reality for such a high percentage of families is they do not choose whether to have children. They do not sit down and work out whether the money adds up. The reason that the rape clause is in place is because so many people are not able to make those choices. People do not set out with an intention to have a certain number of children; it is about what happens in the circumstances that are created.
Kirsty Blackman
I will not.
The reality is that the Conservatives’ position is a very entitled, privileged one, and it does not reflect the majority of our constituents.
Kirsty Blackman
I said I would not give way.
Let me turn to where we are today. The Labour party is being a bit smug about the position we are in. The SNP has been absolutely consistent in calling for the removal of the two-child cap. Alison Thewliss stood in this Chamber and highlighted the rape clause at every possible opportunity; I think people got fed up with her talking about it so much, but she was one of the people leading the charge. On that note, I thank those Labour Members who did back removing the two-child cap at the earliest opportunity. I understand how difficult it is to do that, and I appreciate that they were willing to put their principles first.
Today is a good day because the two-child cap is being cancelled. I am sad, though, that the Secretary of State said that he does not regret anything he has said before on this. That means he does not regret saying that it is “open to debate” whether the two-child cap causes harm, despite the fact that he is now saying absolutely the opposite.
I am glad that the Government are finally scrapping this policy. Children should not be at the sharp end of Government decisions, just as older people whose winter fuel payment was scrapped should not be at the sharp end. None of them is able to take these decisions on their finances. None of them can work a few more hours: a six-year-old cannot do that; a pensioner cannot just work a few more hours, because they may be significantly over the pension age and unable to work.
We need to recognise what has been said by a significant number of Members today, which is that so many of these families are in work. People are working hard; it is just that work does not pay—it does not pay enough. If we look at the stats, we see that people feel that the social security system should provide enough support for people to be able to live. We know that people living on universal credit—particularly large families—cannot afford the essentials, even if they are working. That is what this debate is about: giving people the best chance in life.
The Government, however, are not going far enough yet. The strategy that came out of their child poverty taskforce was simply a reiteration of many things that had already been announced. It was a summary: “Here we are. Here are all the things we have announced already as a Government.” It does not have the ambition we need in order to see child poverty tackled. If we look at the stats, we see that the rate of children in poverty by the end of this Parliament will be exactly the same as it is now. This measure will not reduce child poverty over the piece; the same percentage of children will be in poverty as are in poverty now, because the Government are failing to have ambition.
The UK Government should look at the Scottish child payment, as I asked them to do the other day. They should look at the amount of additional money being provided, particularly as of next year, to families with children under one, in recognition of the difficulty and importance of those first 1,000 days. They should look at those uplifts to ensure that people are taken out of poverty, at the baby box, at the Best Start grants being provided to families, and at the tackling child poverty delivery plan that the Scottish Government will bring out in March. Unlike the UK Government’s paper, which simply lays out a number of great things that the Government say they are doing, we have targets in our plan; We are looking at the actual difference that each of our policies make. I urge the UK Government to look at what is being done in Scotland and at the fact that child poverty is lower in Scotland than in any other part of the UK, and to consider what can be done to ensure that children have the best possible start in life, whether they live in England, Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland.
Douglas McAllister (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab)
I rise to support the Bill and do so proudly on behalf of the families I represent in West Dunbartonshire. The two-child benefit cap makes poor children poorer. It punishes children for their circumstances and it has no place in our United Kingdom. Tackling child poverty is a proud Labour tradition and one that this Government have been proactive in pursuing from the very outset. This will deliver the much-needed change that we promised to my constituents.
West Dunbartonshire is a constituency with pockets of significant deprivation, but it is also one that is built on a proud legacy of hard work, fairness and a strong sense of community. For too long in my constituency, too many families have been held back by the two-child benefit cap—a policy that does not reflect my values. It is where I live, and it is where I want our children and young people to succeed. By scrapping the two-child limit, we will directly benefit 2,260 children in West Dunbartonshire. Last year, over 4,500 children in my constituency were living in poverty, and despite the claims of those who oppose the Bill, more than 60% of those households with children in poverty are working families. I see parents turning to food banks not because they have failed, but because the system has failed them.
In some parts of West Dunbartonshire, over 65% of people are living in relative poverty. In 2024, this meant that eight children in every classroom of 30 in my constituency were growing up in poverty, while more than 12,000 households struggled with fuel poverty. Those figures underlie why the Bill will make such a difference. There are many families in my constituency that struggle every single day to make ends meet, and I see children starting life on the back foot through no fault of their own. My wife works in education, and for many years she worked in a primary school in my constituency where it was common for children to arrive hungry, having had nothing to eat at home.
I remind the House that these are not just statistics. These are children skipping meals and living in cold, damp homes because their families cannot afford to buy sufficient food, never mind pay the heating bill. These children are the next generation in West Dunbartonshire, and they should not be denied the same opportunities as others. Every single child matters.
At the heart of Labour values is an inherent belief that background should not be a barrier to success, and the removal of the two-child limit is a clear and welcome expression of that commitment. This is the change that we promised and it will make a real, tangible difference to so many families in my constituency. The removal of this limit is only part of this Labour Government’s plan for change, and for tackling poverty in a sustained way. The Chancellor’s decision to reduce the level of debt repayments taken from universal credit means that 1.2 million of the poorest households keep more of their award each month. This is a straightforward change, but one that will have a real impact on family finances in West Dunbartonshire.
The Budget delivered record additional funding for Scotland, which will create opportunities to improve outcomes for families and children in places like West Dunbartonshire. However, it is disappointing that the SNP has too often failed to match increased resources with effective delivery when it comes to tackling child poverty in Scotland. Education is the quickest route out of poverty, but in my constituency and across Scotland, the educational attainment gap continues to widen. Meanwhile, further education colleges are being starved of funding, further undermining the life chances of young people in West Dunbartonshire. Removing the two-child limit is the right thing to do. It will give children a better start in life, regardless of how many siblings they have. This will increase their life chances. Not only that, but the decision will also ease the strain on our schools, our local charities and the NHS, and will therefore benefit all in society.
The solution to fixing the welfare system cannot be found in punishing those most vulnerable in society. Social security should provide stability and dignity for everyone, especially children. The Bill is essential to helping alleviate some of the burdens and daily struggles that families in West Dunbartonshire face, and it will lift 450,000 children nationally out of poverty by 2030. I was elected on a manifesto commitment to improve the life chances of every child, and supporting the Bill is consistent with that commitment. Labour has always stood for communities like West Dunbartonshire. Children are not a burden and poverty is not inevitable. I am proud to support the Bill and what it represents—hope, opportunity and fairness—and I commend it to the House.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)
I have heard so many well motivated and moving stories about human misery, and the truth is those are the stories of our country. Those are the stories of a country that has tried for over 100 years to introduce a social welfare service to look after the poorest in our community and to do the best for them, and, in various different ways, all of us—and I do mean all of us—seek to do that. We may have different expressions and different understandings of quite how that works, but we do all try to look after those who are most vulnerable in our society.
But I think the division here comes in a very fundamental way, and it comes in the questions that one has to ask oneself when one looks at the way in which this economy, this society and this community grow. When I say economy, I mean not just the bald rows of figures that accountants and bankers add up, but the way in which the Greeks meant it: the way a home works together, the way people interact to bring about a community and to bring about a whole. How does that work? How do we get growth? How do we get investment and reward at the right point so that we actually see the progress that society can bring?
We have seen societies, time and time again, doing the well-meaning thing, and ending up costing everyone. We can read the constitutions and the promises of Governments and nations over the last century and see the human misery they led to—not because they were evil, but because those intentions were not aligned with the reality of a human economy. We have seen it time and time again.
Sadly, although we are now having a debate about the two-child benefit cap and about £3 billion, we are really having a debate about what it means to grow an economy. Although the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling), made a joke out of it, the reality is that we are seeing young people paying something like 70% tax—and some are therefore making the choice to go to Dubai, to Portugal, to the United States or to Australia. That connection between young and old people is being broken, with families left in need of not only the economic connection but of the human connection between them.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
Will the right hon. Member give way?
Tom Tugendhat
I will not.
This debate is not just about cash; it is fundamentally about people. There has been an attempt again to pretend that the only interaction between people is that which is metricked, divined and organised by the state, and that simply is not true. It simply is not true to say that, unless the state provides it, it does not count. Yet, again and again, we hear the same thing.
Yes, I know that the Conservative Government left taxes high, but many people seem to have forgotten that covid seemed to increase the debt enormously, and that when some of us tried to vote against various lockdowns, we were accused of murdering various groups, depending on whoever the then Leader of the Opposition seemed to be siding with.
Several hon. Members rose—
Tom Tugendhat
I have said I will not give way. It is true that what we are seeing in the UK today is a legacy: of poor decisions on covid that some of us condemned at the time; of promises made in the last year or two; and of debts to those who challenged leadership in the last six to 12 months. We are now seeing, falling on those who are working, a level of burden that is growing and growing, and people are voting with their feet, either by not working or by leaving.
I am afraid that what we are seeing here is a false choice. We are seeing a Government making promises that will never be able to be cashed. We are seeing a Government adding to a debt, not of £2 trillion—the one that they state—but of £12 trillion or £13 trillion, depending on how we count pension liabilities, private finance initiatives and many of the state’s other debts.
The reality is that this country is broke, and to a degree that nobody in this House seems to appreciate—certainly nobody on the Government Benches. We simply do not have the understanding here, among the noble and well-meaning socialists, that the reality is that they are racking up debts for their children that will mean that this state will be impoverished, we will be left weaker and the whole country will be poorer.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
Child poverty is a scourge on any society. It is a tragedy for individual children and families, and the untapped potential, worse health and lower attainment resulting from it hold the whole of society back. In the fifth richest economy in the world, it is also inexcusable. Under 14 years of Conservative-led Governments, the number of children living in poverty grew and poverty deepened, compounded by a housing crisis unprecedented since the second world war, the growth of insecure, low-paid work, and the imposition of the two-child cap.
Action for Children estimates that 4.5 million children are living in poverty in the UK. That is three in 10 children—on average, nine in every classroom. Seven out of 10 children who are living in poverty have at least one parent in work. Behind those statistics are children without a bed to sleep in; children without enough nutritious food to eat; children without warm clothes in winter, living in cold, damp, mouldy homes; children who lack the basics to nurture their growth and development, who are disadvantaged before they even set foot in a classroom.
This situation is not an inevitability. It has come about through the deliberate political choice to prioritise the rhetoric about the benefits system and the stereotypes about the families who rely on it, rather than looking at the evidence and the reality of people’s lives. The Child Poverty Action Group’s analysis of DWP data finds that 1.6 million children have been directly impacted by the decision to impose a cap, above the first two children in a family, on the social security measure that specifically supports families to care for children. Some 59% of those children have parents in work.
The two-child cap has directly pulled 350,000 children into poverty. It is a measure that effectively punishes children for the number of siblings they have. One of the reasons I joined the Labour party many years ago is that we believe that every child deserves to have the opportunity to succeed. We do not judge children on the circumstances of their birth or the decisions of their parents. I am therefore delighted that the Government are taking action to remove the pernicious two-child cap and to lift 400,000 children out of poverty.
Jeremy Corbyn
I absolutely welcome this Bill. It is an enormous step forward and will bring great relief to a lot of families. Does the hon. Lady recognise that the continuation of the overall benefit cap will mean that about 150,000 children will not benefit from this Bill and will remain in relative poverty? Would she welcome further legislation to remove the overall benefit cap in order to try to eliminate all poverty among children?
Helen Hayes
I will go on to talk a little about some of the further measures that I believe the Government need to take on this journey of tackling child poverty.
Evidence from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation is clear that, in the medium term, investment to bring down child poverty reduces the demand on public services that is caused by poor physical and mental health, and by poor education outcomes, which are caused by poverty. Removing the cap is projected to increase the health and education standards of 2 million children who would otherwise have been affected by the cap. By removing the two-child cap, this Labour Government are projected to deliver the biggest ever reduction in child poverty in a single Parliament. I am proud of the other measures that our Government have already announced to help families, which will also help to reduce child poverty: the expansion of free school meals to all children whose families are on universal credit, the delivery of universal free breakfast clubs and the reduction in school uniform costs. The Government’s commitment to children can be in no doubt.
The Education Committee is working jointly with the Work and Pensions Committee to undertake formal scrutiny of the Government’s child poverty strategy. We want the strategy to be as effective as possible, and over the coming weeks we will be listening to evidence from experts on the impacts that the measures announced will have and on whether more should be done. I want the Government to be truly ambitious in tackling child poverty. We should not simply lift the poorest children just above a threshold—important as that is—but ensure that children can truly thrive right across our country. That will require action on some of the other causes of poverty, including housing costs—a shocking number of children are living in temporary accommodation—and food and energy costs. We must provide access to support for families in communities, and an education and skills system that really works for everyone.
Those are the questions that our Committees will turn to in the coming weeks, but this step today is fundamental. The Bill sets the context for an ambitious strategy and will be transformative for families. I am proud to vote for it today.
Charlotte Cane (Ely and East Cambridgeshire) (LD)
Like so many Members from across the House, I welcome the Government’s decision finally to scrap the two-child limit on benefits—I just wish they had done so much earlier. The two-child limit is a cruel and unfair penalty on those in the most urgent need of welfare and support. The cap does not tackle the exploitation of the benefits system in order to avoid work and to continue having children; instead, it has been an enormous burden on thousands of household budgets and has pushed more children into poverty. Even if one believes, like the Conservatives, that people have children irresponsibly, I still cannot see how those children should be punished. Every child deserves a good start in life.
Dr Roz Savage (South Cotswolds) (LD)
There are many reasons people end up on universal credit and in family situations with more than two children. It is because of those blended families that Cotswold district council chose not to apply the two-child limit in its welfare support scheme. Does my hon. Friend agree that such councils—which have, in these cash-strapped times, supported blended families with more than two children —should not end up out of pocket and should be compensated by the Government for that support?
Charlotte Cane
I commend Cotswold district council for that work. Unfortunately, when I tried to get East Cambridgeshire district council to condemn the two-child cap, the Conservatives refused.
This policy was poorly conceived from the outset and has amounted to little more than attacks—not on parents, but on vulnerable children growing up in a cost of living crisis. My Ely and East Cambridgeshire constituency, which is relatively wealthy and has relatively high-paid work, is thankfully below the national average for child poverty. However, child poverty has continued to rise there despite the fact that 70% of affected households have at least one parent in work. Clearly, this is not a case of families scrounging off the system, but of family budgets stretched to breaking point.
Nationally, the picture looks similarly grim. Child poverty has increased over the past 15 years, pushing 850,000 more children into poverty. In rural areas such as my constituency, poverty can be all the more challenging: parents must travel miles to reach a supermarket or a food bank for affordable food, transport costs for school and work are far higher, fuel costs are higher and children are often socially isolated.
We should never have got to this point. The previous Conservative Government should have recognised that the two-child limit was both a failed experiment and salt in the wound for families dealing with spiralling costs in food, energy and basic necessities. I welcome the Government’s decision to make this correction, but it must be seen as the first step in improving the quality of life for children and building a better future. The Child Poverty Action Group estimates that child poverty may cost in excess of £39 billion a year, accounting for additional public spending in areas such as health and education, as well as future tax receipt losses from resulting unemployment.
Behind that economic loss are children, who will, having missed out on sports clubs and healthy food, face a higher risk of disabilities and long-term health conditions—and, as we heard earlier, they even face an increased chance of early death. They are not afforded the opportunities to develop and pursue their own interests. Many may miss out on higher education, apprenticeships and even early employment.
The Bill is about the future of all children living in this country. We must ensure they are equipped with the resources to thrive and the ability to contribute to a society that supports them from the very start. In that spirit, will the Minister agree to annual reviews of the entire universal credit system to ensure that it keeps pace with the cost of living and becomes an effective tool to tackle child poverty?
Lee Barron (Corby and East Northamptonshire) (Lab)
First, I want to take us back, because this debate is being pitched as if those who are not in work are getting something that is being paid for by those in work—that ain’t the case, and it is wrong to suggest it.
I will tell the House what the problem is: the scar of in-work poverty that was left on our economy. I came into politics to reduce child poverty. Children do not choose their circumstances. They are not to blame for low wages. They are not to blame for insecure work. They are not to blame for their parents’ pay packets, yet they are the ones who feel the consequences the most. A child’s chances should not depend on their parents’ wages. A child’s future should not depend on whether mum or dad has a bad boss or a bad year. That is why I was proud when the Government announced this policy, which will lift 450,000 children out of poverty by the end of this Parliament. That includes over 3,000 children in Corby and East Northamptonshire. That is not just a statistic. It is 3,000 children; it is 3,000 lives; it is 3,000 futures and 3,000 chances.
Members should not let anyone tell them that this is not about values, because it is. When we announced that we would put a tax on mansions, the Tories on the Opposition Benches were growling at us and telling us we could not do that, and now they are sitting there today telling us we should not be lifting 450,000 children out of poverty. This is all about values and where we stand. This issue tells us everything we need to know about the priorities of the Opposition parties: they will fight for their cheaper mansions but not for children who go to bed hungry.
And then there is Reform. Reform Members try to present themselves as the voice of working people, but when it comes to it, they vote against working families, they vote against employment rights, and they are voting against this Bill. Their amendment to the Bill says that they disagree with removing the two-child limit because it “fails to incentivise work” for low-paid families, but that is not people cheating the system or people taking advantage. That is working people kept in low pay by a system that the Conservatives built—a system that Reform now defends.
Work should be the route out of poverty, not into a lifetime trapped in it for children or their families. That is why this Government have chosen to back working families. That is why this Government have chosen to back children. That is why this Government are choosing fairness, and that is why Parliament should back this Bill.
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
As my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst) said, no one in this House doubts the importance of supporting children. Labour Back Benchers are feeling good about the fact that they have organised themselves to deliver what they see as a simple moral good, but as they know and we know, things are much more complicated than that. I know they think they have delivered a simple moral good because not a single one of them has mentioned the rate. None of them has questioned why the additional rate is set at £17.25, rising to £17.90. They have not asked whether that is enough to address poverty. They have not sought to get under the skin of whether this is a more complicated and nuanced argument than it might at first appear. Just the simple act is enough, without contemplating the unintended consequences.
I am concerned that the Government are stumbling into a “Careful what you wish for” measure. First, a number of Opposition Members—and, indeed, the Secretary of State—mentioned the demographic time bomb that we face. There has been no discussion of this measure in the context of the overall fiscal problem that our children will face. At the moment, we have about 3.6 workers per pensioner in this country. By 2050, that will have fallen to two. How will we pay for all of this in the future? How will we fund it all without enormous debt? We have only to look across the channel at France to see what a fiscal eruption can look like, with civic disruption and unrest on the streets, when the necessary correction is made to a welfare state that is running out of control. I am afraid that that is exactly the situation we find ourselves in.
No one is pretending that decisions about welfare are easy—they are not easy. Having worked briefly as a Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, I know that these are difficult decisions, yet no one is questioning the micro-decisions that are made. It is simply enough to say to people, “We’re pumping money out there. Let’s hope for the best.” Why is the standard rate for the mobility section of the personal independence payment set at £30.30? I do not know. Does anybody else know? Is there an argument for it? These are the decisions that Ministers have to make on a daily basis, not just about whether we pay welfare but how much we pay. One of my concerns about this measure is that none of that is part of a wider conversation about the massive demographic steam train that is coming down the tunnel towards us.
The second issue I have is that this legislation treats children as a burden to be somehow mitigated, necessarily because it includes them in the welfare bill, rather than as a bonus to be encouraged. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) said, we on the Conservative Benches would much rather there were work incentives that came alongside children. When I was briefly the Secretary of State for Education, I was inundated with correspondence and approaches from lots of highly productive and ambitious women who wanted assistance in work. They wanted some kind of bonus, relief or package to encourage them to have children, rather than a safety net that rescued women if they had children. For a country that needs more children, we need a tilt in our mentality and approach to move from mitigation towards encouragement; that is my concern about embedding the notion that people should have more children in the welfare system.
The final issue I will raise is the legitimacy of the system, which has been raised by a number of Members. We often pretend that we do things for the first time in this country, whereas we can in fact look overseas for lessons, and we do not have to look very far. In France, where successive Governments increased family-related welfare with weak links towards work or contribution, it has created a wider resentment in society. Any successful welfare system must have an eye to legitimacy and consent from the wider population for it to exist.
Dr Arthur
We do not have to look to France. This is fundamentally an issue that many families face around balancing their budgets; many of them are having to get second jobs. Perhaps we can learn from the right hon. Gentleman’s experience, because he has been forced out to get a second job to make ends meet. Perhaps he can give some droplets of experience to those people who are struggling to make ends meet.
Kit Malthouse
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman is paying attention to my entries in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, but, as he will know, I have not been forced out to get a job. I founded my business 30 years ago; I am one of the few people in this House who has created jobs by the sweat of my own hands, rather than just talking about it. Frankly, I pay the Sainsbury’s bill, the mortgages and all the rest of it for all my employees every single month, and I am proud to do so. Maybe he could learn some lessons, by spending time with some businesspeople, about what it is to make true fiscal and economic decisions.
Let me return to my third point, which is about legitimacy. One thing that was found in France was a rise in resentment, which resulted in President Macron taking specific steps to means-test the access to family welfare. French political scientists will point to the rise of the National Rally in France directly stemming from a mishandling of the welfare system and a growth in resentment in those who did not participate in it.
I am afraid that today we see that writ large in the Order Paper in the Reform party’s reasoned amendment, which was not selected. It calls for open discrimination in our welfare system against those who do not have parents born entirely in this country. I must declare an interest as I am afraid that includes two of my children, who were not born to a British citizen. It also includes the children of Members of Parliament who sit for the Reform party. There is something grotesque about seeking legislation that would downgrade the citizenship of one’s own children.
Jack Abbott (Ipswich) (Lab/Co-op)
It is true to say that the Conservative party has been right about one thing today: this is about choices, and I am incredibly proud to be making the one that we are making.
The Conservative party did untold damage to our country, whether it was in hollowing out the criminal justice system, crumbling school buildings and hospitals, record NHS waiting lists or Liz Truss, but the most egregious part of its record was the harm it inflicted on our nation’s children. An entire generation was plunged into poverty.
Poverty is not inevitable. The last Labour Government lifted 600,000 children out of poverty, but the Conservatives’ scorched-earth programme of austerity reversed that trend. Over their 14 years in power, the number of those in child poverty rose by 900,000, and 4.5 million children now live in poverty. In my constituency, thousands of children are growing up in poverty, which is around one in three. Those are not simply abstract statistics; they are the children and families I meet every week.
The shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), said that families have difficult conversations around the kitchen table, and she is absolutely right. Parents are worried about whether they will be turning the heating on or skipping a meal; kids already feel the weight of the world on their shoulders before their 10th birthday; and—as was mentioned just a moment ago—parents working two jobs are still unable to make ends meet. It is cold bedrooms, missed meals and two small, patched-together school uniforms—these are scars that last a lifetime.
Much of that hardship and suffering can be directly attributed to the two-child benefit limit. It is a failed, cruel policy experiment and—leaving aside the fact-free nonsense that we have heard previously from the Conservative party—it makes no difference to family sizes, and it does not drive up employment. Indeed, as has already been mentioned, almost 60% of affected families are in work. The two-child limit does not achieve the so-called goals that Tory ideologues pretend to lay out. Instead, it punishes children; all it does is make children poorer, and it is the single biggest driver of child poverty. Perhaps that is why there are so few Opposition Members prepared to sit and defend this morally, socially and economically bankrupt policy.
Dr Evans
There are not many on the Opposition Benches—the hon. Gentleman’s party won the last election—but we know that the public support keeping this cap in place. Any poll conducted in the last few years has suggested that, on average, 60% of people think that the cap should remain. Why does the hon. Gentleman think the British public back the cap staying in place?
Jack Abbott
I was actually referring to the number of Opposition Members defending this policy here today. I do not think there is a single person in the country who will defend keeping hundreds of thousands more children in poverty. That is what we are getting rid of today, and that is what the hon. Gentleman’s party is defending. It is difficult to think of another policy in modern Britain that is so stark in its design and so devastating in its impact. This policy, for nearly a decade, has quietly and cruelly shaped and limited the life chances of children across this country. Poverty impacts children before they are even born, and its effects continue to be felt in myriad ways at every stage of life after that.
Children growing up in poverty are more likely to experience mental and physical health issues and to do worse in school. They are more likely to be unemployed, earn less or be in low-skilled work than their peers, and they are more likely to experience homelessness and poor health. The shadow Secretary of State said that it is a trap for worklessness. No, this policy is a trap for worklessness, which is exactly what it has achieved over the previous few years. The consequences of poverty are severe and long-lasting, with children born into poverty ultimately having lower life expectancies. Life is shorter because of poverty, and poverty exists in its extreme because of this policy.
For children growing up in a low-income household in my county of Suffolk, education disadvantage starts before they even begin school, and it compounds at every stage of their education. The latest figures from the Education Policy Institute’s 2025 disadvantage report shows that, before kids even enter primary school, they are almost half a year behind their peers. By the time they finish key stage 3, as they choose their options, they are a staggering 21.7 months behind—that is nearly two full school years before they even begin studying for their GCSEs. The translation of this deprivation gap over every stage of a child’s education to their examination results is tangible and stark: disadvantaged students in Suffolk are 4.4 grades behind at the age of 16.
I remember being a councillor during the pandemic, and I saw the enormous impact that this had on so many families, as many Members will remember. Never mind huddling around a kitchen or dining room table trying to work, many families did not have a kitchen or dining room table. Indeed, many disadvantaged students in places like Ipswich were left without electronic devices, such as laptops, for many months. I had hoped that that would be a watershed moment in how we view the link between education and poverty. Instead, what I saw in opposition, as a county councillor in Suffolk, was more cuts to children’s centres and more than a halving of health visitors, yet we wonder why we have such problems now when young children enter education for the first time. It is an absolute disgrace that even now—even after the impact we have seen and all the evidence we have seen—the Conservatives cannot bring themselves to support measures that reduce child poverty.
I am proud to support this Bill, because scrapping the two-child limit will have one of the greatest impacts on driving down child poverty. That one action will lift 450,000 children across our country out of poverty, including more than 3,000 in my town of Ipswich. Through this action, alongside an enormous package of other actions that our Government are taking, we will take over half a million children out of poverty—the largest reduction in a single Parliament since records began.
The two-child limit is quite simply wrong. The number of brothers and sisters that a child has should never determine whether they go hungry or how well they do in school, and no child should be punished simply for existing. Tackling child poverty is in our Labour party’s DNA, and today I could not be prouder to be a Labour MP, because today this Labour Government are following in the footsteps of every Labour Government who came before them by lifting children out of poverty and transforming children’s lives.
Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)
Although the reasoned amendment tabled by my Reform UK colleagues and myself has not been selected, I would still like to speak to the contents of that important amendment.
Scrapping the two-child benefit limit does nothing to help hard-working parents who set their alarm clocks every morning, and does everything to encourage families who are already on benefits to have more children in the full knowledge that the state will pay for them. Removing the two-child benefit cap without imposing any other restrictions, such as limiting it to working families with British-born parents, fails to incentivise work.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sarah Pochin
Let me make some progress. It increases the support to non-working families beyond that given to working parents earning above the benefit level, so those who work are being punished while those who play the system are rewarded. The cost to the taxpayer of scrapping the cap is estimated at £15 billion over the next five years, with families affected by the cap estimated to gain an average of £25,000 per family over that period, and the more children they have, the more they get. That is not sustainable, and it is not fair—it is another step towards crippling our economy instead of introducing policies to grow it. We cannot advocate for a society in which work does not pay.
Furthermore, due to higher birth rates among foreign nationals—
Several hon. Members rose—
Sarah Pochin
Just a minute—I do not know who is first.
Due to higher birth rates among foreign nationals, a significant amount of this additional expenditure is expected to go to households in which at least one parent was born outside the UK.
To be clear, and to conclude, Reform will only lift the cap for British families where both parents are in full-time work.
Mr Richard Quigley (Isle of Wight West) (Lab)
Listening to the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), is quite something—one would think that the recipients of this benefit were spending the money on soft furnishings for their second homes. They are not; they are spending it on food, rent and clothing for their children. The rise in child poverty under the previous Tory Government has been a shameful stain on this country, and I am proud to be part of a Government who are taking action, not only to provide food and basic necessities but to give children the opportunity to escape cycles of poverty and build secure, independent futures. In the months since this policy was announced, we have heard some truly shameful language from Opposition Members, including describing this Budget as a “Budget for ‘Benefits Street’”. In doing so, they completely denigrate the 450,000 children who never chose to be born into poverty, and who for the most part have simply had the misfortune of growing up during years of successive Conservative Governments.
It is telling that using taxpayers’ money to lift children out of poverty is framed by the Conservatives as an irresponsible use of public funds, while the £10 billion lost to covid fraud is something we are apparently expected to forget and move on from without consequence. I would genuinely welcome the shadow Secretary of State and the Leader of the Opposition to my constituency, so that they can explain directly to the nearly 1,600 children who will be lifted out of poverty by the removal of the two-child cap why the Leader of the Opposition so routinely denigrates people like them and their parents—parents who themselves are paying the price for a Government she was part of, who sent mortgages soaring and allowed inflation to reach 11%. Sadly, I will not hold my breath. When she is not using the Isle of Wight as a punchline for one of her poor, laugh-less jokes, she treats it as a photo opportunity, without having the basic respect to engage with local people, local media or, indeed, the local MP.
Perhaps we should not be surprised. The Conservative party has consistently failed to understand the real, tangible difference that such policies make to people’s lives. Instead of reckoning with the impact of their poverty-accelerating decisions, they choose to vilify those who stand to benefit from the Bill. As I understand it, Reform would now reverse the two-child cap to find money to pay for a cheaper pint at the local pub. Presumably Reform’s next policies would increase the drunk-driving limit to whatever people think they can get away with and lower the age of buying cigarettes to 12, because daddy will be too busy down the pub saving money to buy his own cigs.
As a small business owner, I know too well the damaging legacy of austerity, and the removal of the two-child cap represents the clearing away of one of the most shameful legacies of the austerity years. I know from first-hand experience the impact that Government decisions have on local economies. Austerity was not just a line in a Budget; it was a decade of under-investment that hit businesses such as mine hard. It hollowed out our high streets, weakened consumer confidence and squeezed the incomes of working families.
This policy is about more than tackling poverty and the intergenerational damage it causes; it is about giving hard-working families the chance to feel that they are a part of their high street again, and supporting those who have lost a wage earner or whose wages have simply failed to keep pace with the cost of living. It is called social security for a reason, and it is the solemn responsibility of any Government to provide a safety net to those who, through no fault of their own, have fallen on hard times.
This policy is not just about the removal of the benefits cap; it is an investment in our greatest asset—the British people—and in our future. It is about ensuring that the next generation do not go to school hungry or without the basic necessities and about putting our country on a stronger footing by giving every child a fair start in life.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
The benefits system is a safety net designed to support people in hardship, but a fair system must balance that with the needs of those who pay for it. Benefits are paid by the taxpayers of today or, if the money is borrowed, as is so often the case with this Government, by the taxpayers of tomorrow. Every time the cost of benefits rises, so does the burden on the taxpayer, and that cost is growing unsustainably. Spending on health and disability benefits alone is set to hit £100 billion a year by the end of the decade. It is a mark of Labour’s irresponsibility that it presents a Bill today to increase welfare spending further.
I believe in personal responsibility. Not only should our country live within its means, but every individual and family should do so too. Many thousands of couples every year think about whether to have children. They make that choice based on a number of factors, but one of the most important is whether they can afford to bring up that child as they would like to. Those in receipt of benefits should face the same choices as those in work. That is why the Conservatives introduced the two-child benefit cap, and it is why I believe it should be retained.
Under the pre-2017 system, there was a fundamental element of unfairness. A family in receipt of benefits saw them increase automatically every time they had another child. That was not true of a family not in receipt of benefits. Why should a taxpayer who has decided that they cannot afford more children subsidise the third, fourth or fifth child of someone not in work?
I understand why Labour Members are in favour of more welfare spending. They stopped representing working people a long time ago, and they now want to create a society where more than half the population is dependent on the state to ensure their re-election. Why has the leader of Reform UK, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), supported scrapping the two-child cap until so very recently? Voters in my constituency, some even sympathetic to his cause, have been horrified. I think the answer is that he is chasing votes in the north of England, hoping to win support from former Labour voters. That instinct for higher spending shows that Reform UK is wholly unserious about governing our country. Britain needs a Government determined to deliver the changes we need: controlling public expenditure and reducing borrowing, leading to lower taxes and a stronger economy.
Sam Rushworth
I am deeply offended by the hon. Gentleman’s comment about people in the north of England, as though they are people who simply vote for their own welfare. That is not true. The people I represent are proud to be hard-working people in good working-class jobs, and many of them have children who have been impacted by the two-child cap. Would the hon. Gentleman like to apologise to them?
Sir Ashley Fox
If the hon. Gentleman had listened to what I was saying, he would know that I was describing the tactics of the hon. Member for Clacton. That, I believe, is what motivates his policy on this matter.
The Government seem to be completely powerless to do anything to reverse the spiralling costs of the welfare state. The Prime Minister did, of course, try to produce a package of modest reforms last year. He set out to save £4.5 billion, but was forced into a humiliating U-turn and ended up spending more taxpayers’ money to buy off Labour rebels. He now says that his welfare reforms strike the “right balance”. Does anyone believe him? There is not a thought for the taxpayer, and not a thought about the extra debt that the Government are incurring and the interest that will have to be paid on it.
Let me remind Labour Members that before the election, they said repeatedly that they would
“not increase taxes on working people”.
That was accompanied by a manifesto pledge that they would increase spending by £9.5 billion, but in the 18 months since they were elected, the Government have actually increased spending by £100 billion—10 times more than they promised. They have increased taxes by £66 billion, and borrowing by an extra £40 billion. This is what the Labour Government do best: spending other people’s money. It is in their DNA. They do not care about getting better value for the taxpayer; their only thought is about how to spend and borrow more, as if that were a sign of caring.
I am proud to have a leader with the backbone to tell the truth to the British people. We need to reduce the size of the state so that it does less but does it better. We will reward people who do the right thing—who work hard, who save, who invest, who create jobs, and who build a more prosperous country for all of us.
Samantha Niblett (South Derbyshire) (Lab)
I rise to speak in support of lifting the two-child cap, not just as a Member of Parliament but as someone who knows personally what it means to live on the edge of financial insecurity. That was not my child’s fault.
A few years ago, between the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019, long before I entered the House, I was for a time a single parent and out of work—not for long in the grand scheme of things, but for long enough to struggle again. I do not want to make this speech about me, but I want to give this example because, hopefully, it shows a modicum of insight and empathy that appears to be missing in more than one party on the other side of the House.
Like millions of people, I was doing everything that I could to keep going, to keep my home afloat and to shield my child from the worst of the stress and anxiety that come with not having enough. Many people experience that even in work—people with responsibility for more children than I have. At that time, I had to register a statutory off-road notification for my car because I simply could not afford to run and tax it, so twice a day, every day, I would walk to the school. That took me about three hours. Let me be clear about what that meant in practice. It meant—especially for my daughter—starting the day already exhausted, yet knowing that I still had to parent, to job hunt, to cope. At the end of the day, it meant digging deep for energy that, quite frankly, I often just did not have. On some days, if I could scrape together enough loose change—coins that I gathered from looking hither and thither—I could afford to take a bus, and that small thing, that single bus journey, made an enormous difference to me and to my child. I had a little more patience, a little more capacity to be the parent that my child needed me to be.
That, for so many, is the reality that we are talking about today. The two-child cap is often discussed in abstract terms—in terms of numbers, incentives and thresholds—but behind every statistic is a family making impossible choices, parents skipping meals so that their children can eat, and children growing up with limits imposed on them before they have even had a chance to begin. This is not about supporting families who are simply irresponsible or reckless or thoughtless or not planning ahead for children they can or cannot afford. It predominantly impacts on working families who sometimes fall on hard times, families who lose a job, families whose circumstances change through illness, bereavement or redundancy, families who did not plan to need support but need it none the less. Children do not choose the circumstances they are born into, yet under the two-child cap we are telling some children that they are worth less than others. This support will remove the arbitrary line drawn not by need, but by ideology.
Lifting the two-child cap is not about rewarding anyone, but about recognising reality. It is about acknowledging that the cost of living has risen, that wages have not kept pace and that social security should provide security, especially for children. When we invest in families, we invest in better outcomes, better health, less crime, better education and stronger communities. We also reduce pressure on public services further down the line, and we give parents the breathing space they need.
When I think back to the long walks, exhaustion and worry, as well as the quiet determination to keep going, I know how much difference a little extra support will make for the very many families and children who will be lifted out of poverty by this policy. It is not luxury and comfort; it is just dignity and a fair chance. It is the difference between a parent breaking or not, going without a meal to feed their child or not, and the difference between a child not starting the day exhausted and having a warm bedroom at bedtime or not.
Saying, “Don’t have children if you can’t afford them,” just does not wash. It is not a parent’s fault if they have record high energy bills thanks to the war in Ukraine. Saying that does not help a parent who is out of work due to ill health, thanks to a broken NHS that has not been there to help them after 14 years of Conservative government. It is no parent’s fault when they have a child with special educational needs and disabilities, who perhaps they have had to give up work to support. The fault does not lie with the more than 60% of working families who are struggling. That is why I urge this House to do the right thing, as have Citizens Advice, the Child Poverty Action Group, Alder Hey children’s hospital, the Mental Health Foundation, the Royal College of Nursing, the Women’s Budget Group and UNICEF UK—to name but a few. I notice that Conservative Members have referred to absolutely no organisations that back their claim that this is the wrong thing to do.
I want to ensure that no child in this country is held back simply because of the circumstances they were born into or the changed circumstances that have made things harder for them and their parents. That is why I am grateful that we are not passing the Bill in isolation, but that this Labour Government are delivering Best Start hubs, breakfast clubs to help parents get back into work and to get to work earlier, and up to £7,000 of childcare for working parents. We are also helping young people who are out of work, education or training into the workplace to better their life opportunities, and that is what lifting the two-child cap is about.
Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)
The two-child limit has punished children for circumstances entirely beyond their control. For nearly a decade, families have been denied support simply because a child happened to be born as a third or a fourth child. That was a cruel choice made by policymakers, not one made in children’s best interests, and it really shows that a Government can get it wrong. This was a particularly callous policy because it was designed to punish children, and because of the harm done to generations of young people, who are the future of our country.
Today, 4.5 million children in the UK are growing up in poverty, including in my constituency of Stratford-on-Avon. This policy has been a major driver of deep poverty, pushing working families further into hardship at a time when food, energy and housing costs remain painfully high. In Stratford-on-Avon, I hear from parents who are working hard, often juggling insecure hours or caring responsibilities, yet are still struggling to afford basics such as heating, healthy food, transport and even furniture. Many live in privately rented homes where costs keep rising, while support has been cut or frozen. These families are doing everything that is asked of them, yet the system has been stacked against them.
I gently remind the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), that looking after five children as a single parent is a job—it is work. Raising a family is one of the most important jobs or contributions that a person can make to society. Research by the Social Market Foundation has made the wider point that when countries make it harder to have and raise children, birth rates tend to fall and populations age faster. That has real consequences for the long-term health of our economy and the public finances, because a smaller working-age population has to support a larger retired population, while demand, productivity and innovation can all suffer.
The same analysis also underlines something we should be honest about in this debate: in the UK, being a parent is too often tied to financial pressure. Where families feel supported through affordable, high-quality childcare and a safety net that does not penalise children, outcomes are better for parents and for children alike, and the whole society benefits. If we are serious about giving every child the best start in life, we should stop designing policy that makes it harder for families to get by.
Removing the two-child limit is the single most effective step this House can take to lift children out of poverty during this Parliament. It is backed by children’s charities, economists, educators and those working on the frontline. It will improve health, educational outcomes and life chances, while easing pressure on public services in the long term. A fair society does not balance its books by denying children support. It invests in them, protects them and gives every child the opportunity to thrive. That is why I and my Liberal Democrat colleagues support the removal of the shameful two-child limit and why I am proud to back the Bill’s Second Reading.
Mr James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)
Of course I support the Bill. It is what we are here for: to do this at the stroke of a pen—not of any pen, but that of a Government pen—after years in opposition, hoping to be able to come in and enact the sort of change we are able to make today. I am proud to stand in support of this Bill, and of the work that the Minister for Social Security and Disability continues to do in assessing the welfare reforms to come.
In my constituency, child poverty is a daily reality for too many families. More than 7,000 children in Bury North are growing up in poverty. That means that over a third of the families I represent are in poverty—well above the national average—and the majority of them are in work. Behind each number is a child arriving at school hungry, a parent worrying about rent or heating, and families doing everything right but still falling short on the bills they have to pay. What makes this harder is that Bury North is often seen, on paper, as doing reasonably well, with strong communities and pride in place, but proximity to prosperity does not cushion poverty; it simply hides it.
Too often, policy has failed to understand that. That is why the Government are right to reassess how funding is allocated, recognising that affluence and deprivation sit side by side, ward by ward. Crucially, it is why this change is being made now, when it is costed and affordable, yet overdue. In Chesham Fold and parts of East Ward, parents work every hour they can, budgeting meticulously, yet still struggle to cover the basics. The least well-off are often the best at budgeting, because they have no choice but to stretch limited means as far as possible.
Nowhere is inequality clearer than in health. A child born in one part of my constituency can expect to live seven to 10 years less than a child born barely a mile away. That gap is not about lifestyle choices. It is about poverty shaping lives before they have even properly begun. That is why lifting the two-child limit matters so much, and why I support it as an economic and moral intervention. Scrapping it will lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty, reduce the depth of poverty for many more and increase spending power in exactly the communities that need it most. That money is spent locally, in full, on food shops, markets, uniforms, rent, heating and transport. It circulates through local economies, gives them buoyancy, stabilises households and reduces pressure on public services downstream. Child poverty already costs our economy close to £40 billion a year in lost potential and higher demand. Ending it for families in Bury North is not ideological; it is hard-headed prevention.
I challenge those who continue to trade in the myths that cling to this debate. Most affected families are already in work; many include a disabled child. Family circumstances change overnight for many of us, through bereavement, redundancy or relationship breakdown. A social security system that fails to recognise that is not tough; it is brittle and will break too easily, as it did for 14 years. This matters even more profoundly for children with special educational needs and disabilities, with the recent Sutton Trust report stating that growing up with SEND and in poverty creates a “double disadvantage”.
I support this Government’s instincts on welfare reform. Rights, responsibilities and contribution matter, but responsibility works only if the floor people are expected to stand on is high enough in the first place. The Bill, alongside wider measures to support families and tackle low incomes, sends a clear message: we are serious about prevention, serious about fairness, and serious about breaking the link between the circumstances of birth and chances in life.
Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Your Party)
Labour MPs are lining up today to congratulate themselves on ending the two-child limit. I welcome that decision; I fought for it and I voted for it, and I was suspended and punished by my former party for doing so. While that punishment was being handed out by the Labour Whips Office on behalf of the Prime Minister, children in Coventry South and across the country paid the price.
Facts matter: the two-child limit pushes an estimated 109 children into poverty every single day. From the moment I was suspended for voting to scrap the limit to today, when we are debating the Second Reading of this Bill, 19 months have passed—19 months of delay and excuses. During that time, while this Labour Government delayed, argued and disciplined their own MPs for doing the right thing, over 63,000 children were pushed into poverty. Those children will not get that time back. They will carry the consequences for the rest of their lives.
There are now 4.5 million children living in poverty in Britain. That is not a statistic; in the sixth largest economy in the world, that is a national disgrace. Without further action, that number will rise to 4.7 million during this Parliament. Scrapping the two-child limit matters because the limit is the single biggest driver of rising child poverty.
Jeremy Corbyn
Does the hon. Member recognise that additional causes of child poverty include a tax threshold that has not been raised at all and the insufficiency of the minimum wage, which drives many working families into desperate poverty, with their children suffering as a result?
Zarah Sultana
I agree completely with the right hon. Gentleman. [Interruption.] If I could continue without the heckling from those on the Labour Benches who have now decided that child poverty is a priority they want to pursue—as I was saying, scrapping the two-child limit matters because the limit is the single biggest driver of rising child poverty. Scrapping it will lift hundreds of thousands of children closer to dignity and security.
But this Labour Government have decided to stop halfway, because although the two-child limit goes, the benefit cap remains. That means that tens of thousands of families will feel no benefit at all from this change. According to the Government’s own analysis, 50,000 families will gain nothing, another 10,000 will gain only part of what they are owed, and some parents will be left with just £3 a week after rent—£3 to feed, clothe and raise a child. Let us be clear: the Government cannot claim to have ended a policy that punishes children while keeping another that traps them in deep poverty. The benefit cap does not drive employment or create opportunity; it simply takes money from the poorest families—many of them single parents with very young children—and pushes them deeper into despair and hardship.
If this Labour Government are serious about tackling child poverty, they have to finish the job. That means scrapping the benefit cap, ending the two-child limit in full, increasing child-related benefits and making free school meals universal so that no child is excluded simply because their parents earn a pound too much. It means introducing an essentials guarantee into our social security system so that everyone can afford the basics, and ending the four-year freeze on local housing allowance so that families can keep a roof over their heads in the middle of a cost of living crisis. Every single day of delay causes real harm to the most vulnerable in our society; every day of half measures by this Labour Government means that children will continue growing up cold, hungry and anxious about what comes tomorrow.
Reducing child poverty is not radical; it is responsible, it is the right thing to do, it improves health, it improves education and it improves long-term economic outcomes. Last July, alongside six other colleagues, I voted to scrap the two-child benefit cap not for applause; I voted for it because poverty is a political choice, and it was the right thing to do. If this House truly believes that all children are equal, it must act on that belief and abolish the two-child benefit cap in full, without delay.
Ian Byrne (Liverpool West Derby) (Lab)
I was also one of the seven Labour MPs suspended: for voting, to be quite clear, on an amendment to strengthen the King’s Speech by removing the two-child limit. I had made a vow to my constituents in Liverpool West Derby during the election that I would vote to scrap that inhumane policy at every single opportunity I had—so I did.
Today I am grateful and, frankly, relieved that the Government have recognised this policy for what it always was: an immoral attack from the architect of austerity, George Osborne, which punished working-class children. That is everything we should oppose in a Labour Government. Today is a big step in the right direction for the Government elected on a promise to support the most vulnerable, and for change. I am delighted that we stand here today.
Shamefully, 4.5 million children are living in poverty in the UK—850,000 more than in 2010. The two-child limit has been a key driver of that increase since its introduction in 2017. According to the Child Poverty Action Group, every single day that the policy existed, 109 children were pushed into poverty and denied their ability to live life to the full. Trussell figures are just as stark: almost one in three emergency food parcels last year went to families with three or more children, who make up just 11% of the population, and more than two in five of those families experienced food insecurity. This winter, food banks have been forced to provide an emergency food parcel every 10 seconds—in one of the richest, wealthiest nations on Earth.
Jeremy Corbyn
I compliment the hon. Member on the amazing work he has done on the Right to Food Commission and on food banks in Liverpool, supported by all the football clubs there. He must be aware—maybe he has figures—of the number of families with children who use food banks who are in work, and sometimes doing two jobs, but who are still so poor that they cannot afford to pay a weekly grocery bill.
Ian Byrne
I thank my right hon. Friend for those remarks. We run food pantries in Liverpool with Fans Supporting Foodbanks, and over 60% of those who access those pantries are in work. That is the stark reality of the world we live in.
Behind the figures are real families and real children. Alder Hey Children’s Charity made abolishing the two-child limit its primary focus in its Put Children First campaign report. That charity see at first hand the damage the policy causes to the children in our communities. I have spoken to my great friend, the paediatrician Dr Ian Sinha from Alder Hey children’s hospital. He was presented with a child who, at first sight, he thought had leukaemia. It turned out to be malnutrition.
Poverty kills. That is why scrapping the two-child limit matters. In my constituency of Liverpool West Derby alone, over 3,000 children will be lifted out of poverty. Nationally, 470,000 children will benefit by 2027, alongside 200,000 adults. That represents a 15% reduction in child poverty, with the living standards of 1.6 million children improving immediately.
The impact goes far beyond immediate relief. As we heard at the Right to Food Commission’s evidence session last week in Knowsley, lifting families out of poverty and improving their food security transforms lives, leading to better health outcomes, less pressure on the NHS, higher educational attainment and a stronger future workforce. For those in this place today and many who are not here now who rallied against the cost of lifting children out of poverty, the economic benefit of removing the two-child limit is estimated at £3.1 billion per year through reduced pressure on public services, increased employment and higher tax revenues. It is cost-neutral. For those who speak only the language of the Treasury, it is not only morally right but fiscally responsible. If that floats your boat, that is what we are talking about.
We must be honest, though: this measure does not go far enough. We are voting to remove the two-child benefit limit, not the benefit cap. The cap remains, meaning that 50,000 families will see no benefit at all and 20,000 will see only a marginal increase. If we are really serious about ending child poverty—and I hope we are, with the strategy that we are bringing forward—this Government must commit to removing the benefit cap entirely in this Parliament. The Right to Food UK Commission will also call for legislation on a comprehensive right to food, including universal free school meals, transparency on food costs and the requirement for food security to be considered across all areas of policy.
I urge colleagues to support the Bill, but I remind the House that when it comes to inequality, we do not get to choose where our moral mission ends. As long as children in 21st-century Britain are growing up hungry or in poverty, there is more we can and must do. Let us remove the two-child limit today, end the benefit cap, legislate for the right to food and build a Britain where no family or child is left behind.
Liz Jarvis (Eastleigh) (LD)
Scrapping the two-child benefit cap is the single most important action this Government could take to improve outcomes for children in poverty. My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I have called for it consistently, so I am pleased that the Government are finally taking this step. Children and young people in Eastleigh and across our country have paid the price for a policy that was never about fairness, but instead about cutting support to the families who are often struggling the most. This cruel, shameful policy should never have been introduced in the first place. I reiterate that circumstances can change in a heartbeat: redundancy, bereavement or discovering that a child needs special care, meaning that a parent has to give up work—these life-changing events can all have a huge and sometimes devastating impact on household income.
According to the End Child Poverty coalition, 20.6% of children in Eastleigh are growing up in poverty. These experiences in early childhood shape outcomes for life, affecting health, educational attainment and future earnings. Without further action, over 4 million children in the UK will still be growing up in poverty by 2029. Housing costs, inflation—particularly food inflation—and high energy costs continue to be central drivers of hardship.
The Department for Work and Pensions’ own impact assessment has found that around 50,000 low-income families currently affected by the two-child benefit limit will gain nothing when it is lifted in April. A further 20,000 will see their incomes lift only partially from April, due to having their income raised to benefit cap level. What further measures will the Minister take to ensure that all children can fulfil their full potential? Citizens Advice Eastleigh recently advised a single parent whose universal credit was reduced by nearly 30% due to the benefit cap, which, combined with her high rental costs, left her with only £400 a month to feed and clothe her children and keep them warm. Charities in my constituency and across the UK say the same thing: the Bill on its own, while welcome, is not enough.
A fair society does not balance its books on the backs of children. It is frankly astonishing that the Conservatives would reinstate the two-child benefit cap. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Conservatives’ policy did not have a significant impact on labour supply and has not considerably affected fertility decisions, so the only thing it did was to drive more children into poverty. What a terrible legacy that is. I wonder what they would say to the 72% of children living in poverty who are in working families, and the families with three or more children who are in poverty through absolutely no fault of their own. A fair society protects its children, invests in them and gives every child the chance to thrive. That is why I support this Bill, and why I will continue to press for further action until child poverty in this country is eradicated once and for all.
Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)
I am proud to support the Bill and do so with the families of Southampton firmly in mind. Those are families who fell foul of the last Conservative Government’s mission to make Britain Dickensian again.
Child deprivation in my city is among the worst in the country—worse than more than 83% of local authorities. Here, that is a potentially abstract statistic; there, it is reflected in the lived reality of my constituents. More than one in five working-age adults in Southampton are on universal credit. That rises to an average of one in three in our most deprived neighbourhoods. As colleagues have said, many of those people are working hard but are still falling short. What was the last Conservative Government’s answer to that? It was to count the children and punish the whole family. No doubt tonight Conservative Members will traipse through the Lobby and vote to keep a lid on the 450,000 children who are about to be released from poverty.
The two-child limit simply did not work. If anything, it compounded the pressures on families—families who repeatedly tell me that the universal credit they receive barely covers the rent, let alone food, heating or school essentials. That is the Tory legacy, and that is the deeply entrenched poverty that this Labour Government are having to undo bit by bit. It is therefore no surprise that an estimated 10,000 children in Southampton still live in households with absolute low income and that 25% of children live in households with relative low income. These realities demand clear action, and this Bill is part of that action being led by the Labour Government.
Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. The issues he describes in his Southampton constituency apply in a similar way to my residents in Reading. Does he agree that an important aspect of the Government’s work is not only what we are debating today, but the wider and broader package of measures, such as help on housing and the cost of transport and the warm homes initiative? Perhaps he will talk about the overall impact of these measures.
Darren Paffey
I thank my hon. Friend for making that salient point, and I will come to that wider package of measures.
Of course, we have heard straw-man arguments, saying, “Well, this one thing will not solve child poverty.” No one is claiming that it will solve child poverty; it is one piece in the jigsaw of the wider work that this Government are doing. But I am glad that this punitive, arbitrary cap, which only made life worse for so many, is being scrapped. That will lift up to 2,500 children in Southampton Itchen out of poverty.
If I were to credit the Conservative Opposition with one thing in this debate, it would be their consistency.
Darren Paffey
Consistently wrong, and they have made a consistent and desperate attempt to be divisive. They are trying to split the country into those who pay tax and those who receive welfare. These generalisations around the “deserving” and the “undeserving” poor are not only crass but factually wrong. Many contribute through work for years. They fall on hard times and rely on the safety net that they have paid into—my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett) made that point eloquently. The Conservatives ignore the fact that many receive universal credit while they are working. That is the state topping up poverty wages. The Conservatives might be happy to ignore that, but Labour is taking action on the minimum wage—what a contrast.
This Bill removing the two-child limit is a vital step, but—to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading Central (Matt Rodda)—it is not a stand-alone measure. It sits alongside this Labour Government’s wider work, such as opening free breakfast clubs, which will transform life chances, with early adopters in St John’s, St Patrick’s and Hightown primary schools in my constituency. It also sits alongside the £20 million Pride in Place investment in the Weston estate and the expansion of free school meals. A third of pupils in my state-funded schools are eligible for free school meals, and more are set to get that support, making a material difference to their lives and breaking down some of the barriers to learning that still exist.
Labour is investing in more childcare to help those parents who face barriers to getting into work. We are strengthening some of the universal credit work allowances, and delivering a comprehensive child poverty strategy aimed at giving every single child a fair start. I commend the Secretaries of State for Education and for Work and Pensions for the work they have done on leading that vital change.
We all dream of a future where these kinds of benefits might not be as necessary as they are now. We dream of, and Labour is working towards, a world where work pays well and pays better, which our Employment Rights Act 2025 moves us closer to achieving. We dream of a world where the cost of living crisis is less acute, as our action on warm homes and freezing rail fares, VAT rates, income tax rates and fuel duty will help to achieve. Add to that the creation of opportunities through the youth guarantee scheme and more apprenticeships, and we can see that a lot is happening, but that there is still much more to do.
The Bill recognises a very simple truth: children do not choose the circumstances into which they are born. Supporting the Bill and scrapping the arbitrary failed cap is not only the right economic decision; it is the right moral decision.
Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)
The Government have drawn this Bill too narrowly. It will, as Members have mentioned several times, leave at least 150,000 children in larger families with no extra help at all. For example, Maryam, highlighted by the Z2K charity, is a lone parent of three. She fled from domestic abuse and relies on us for her income while she restarts her life. Abolishing the two-child limit alone will not improve her life one bit, because she is affected by both the two-child limit and the overall benefit cap.
In December, after this policy change was finally announced—about 18 months after the Government should have taken action—I asked Ministers how many families and children would be excluded from the extra help, and they told me that that information was not available. It is beyond me how they could decide that this policy would leave out children without knowing exactly how many. DWP data shows that there are nearly 1,000 families subject to the benefit cap in my constituency, but I was not told—and I still do not know—how many of my families will be excluded from the provisions in the Bill. We do know how many children in total will be left out and not helped. The impact assessment for the Bill says that 50,000 families will see no gain at all, and that another 20,000 families in the first year will only partially gain before the household benefit cap kicks in for them too. In total, at least 200,000 children will not get the help they need from the Government.
The benefit cap, like the two-child limit, was always unjust. Introduced by the Conservatives who used headlines and misrepresentations, they drove up stigma and demonisation—demonisation of children in poverty and their parents. The Conservatives failed to see that social security is security for everyone, and that this spending pays back in wider benefits that the Treasury and the country will see. We should not limit lives through prejudice,
Kirsty Blackman
Does the hon. Member share my concerns that the arguments that are being made by the Labour Government in cancelling the two-child cap were applicable 19 months ago, and that 61,000 children could have been kept out of poverty if the Government had agreed with us in debates on the King’s Speech, rather than waiting until now?
Siân Berry
I thank the hon. Member for pointing out yet again that some of us in this House voted to move on this issue many, many months ago, and it is about time that the Government caught up.
I utterly reject the racist agenda of Reform’s objections. The fact is that the Bill is not wrong, but it fails to do right by far too many children, so what will the Government do to fix that? The scope of the Bill could be widened by the Government to remove the benefit cap. This could be done through a motion or even by a simple amendment, which I have been trying to achieve. It is down to the Government to listen to Members who have spoken on this issue today. I quite simply ask them whether they will now act.
Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)
The introduction of the two-child limit by the Conservatives in 2017 has had a devastating impact on child poverty rates. Every day, it affects 1.7 million children, with a loss of roughly £3,500 a year for affected families. A huge 17% of children in my constituency live in families subject to this inhumane and unjust policy.
It is also a policy that has failed on its own terms: a study by the London School of Economics found that it did not increase employment rates among those families affected, the majority of whom are already in work. Meanwhile, the wellbeing of hundreds of thousands of children became collateral damage in this reckless experiment, from living in overcrowded homes to going to bed hungry.
It is utterly disgraceful that this cruel policy has remained in force for so long, and I know that many of our constituents have felt let down that our Labour Government did not act more quickly. I am therefore greatly relieved that the calls that so many of us have repeatedly made are now being heeded, and that the Government are finally scrapping the two-child limit. This would not have been possible without the tireless work of campaigners, who have spent almost a decade fighting for this change.
Experts agree that the removal of the two-child limit is the most cost-effective way to cut child poverty, with the change expected to lift almost half a million children out of poverty by the end of this Parliament. With more than a third of children in my constituency growing up in poverty, I breathe a sigh of relief for the children and families in Nottingham East, and right across the country, who will finally be receiving the support that they should always have had.
Poverty is a political choice, and this Bill proves that we can make decisions that have a real impact, but this must be the start and not the end. I am concerned that around 50,000 low-income families currently affected by the two-child benefit limit will gain nothing when it is lifted in April because of the benefit cap. I am also worried that children whose parents are subject to no recourse to public funds will continue to be at a disproportionately high risk of poverty because they are denied support. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has also warned that progress on tackling poverty is likely to stall without further action.
Jeremy Corbyn
I thank the hon. Member for giving way. I absolutely agree with her about those 50,000 families not getting any benefit. Does she agree that there needs to be a more comprehensive approach to child poverty, including raising the tax threshold to take the poorest families and poorest people out of taxation altogether, and looking at the extraordinarily high private sector rents in many places, which are way above the local housing allowance and mean that families on benefit end up subsidising their rent in order to keep a roof over their heads?
Nadia Whittome
I thank the right hon. Member for that intervention. I agree with the points that he made, particularly because, from my constituency inbox, huge numbers of constituents are effectively evicted because landlords keep hiking their rents. That is why I back his call, and the calls of Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham—our mayors—to allow local areas to introduce rent controls. I also back the calls of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for universal credit to cover the cost of essentials such as food, toiletries and heating.
Addressing people’s material conditions—their living conditions—is how we keep the far right at bay. We must show that we are on the side of working-class people. We must tax the multimillionaires and put money back into our public services and people’s pockets. We must do that at pace, so that no child grows up in poverty, in the sixth-largest economy in the world, so that people can see the difference that a Labour Government can make, and so that our society becomes a happier, healthier and more equal place for all of us to live. That must be our goal.
Susan Murray (Mid Dunbartonshire) (LD)
It seems that with increasing frequency I stand in this place welcoming Labour U-turns, and today I welcome yet another. The decision to lift the two-child cap is clearly the right moral choice, and it will lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty.
For those in Scotland, this is a particularly welcome change. There will no longer be any need for the Scottish Government to divert funds from social care and council services to the Scottish child payment. With that in mind, I urge the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), who is on the Bench behind me, to discuss with her colleagues in Holyrood the merits of using some of the projected £155 million savings to help fund a new health and care hub for the people of Bearsden and Milngavie in my constituency.
I am aware that some people do not support lifting the cap. The change is set to cost UK taxpayers over £3 billion annually by 2030—clearly an enormous sum. Over the past year, we have seen that this Labour Government are set on making working people pay for their changes through tax band freezing, national insurance rises and pension changes. With that in mind, I urge the Government to look seriously at the Liberal Democrat proposals that aim to raise tax revenue. First, banks have made record profits—an estimated £50 billion in a single year—off the backs of hard-working people. We Liberal Democrats believe that it is only fair that the banks pay back some of that money. A windfall tax on these enormous profits could raise £7 billion per year, without placing any more strain on people who are already struggling.
On top of that—I know that Conservative Members will not be happy to hear this again—we need a customs union with Europe. Trade deals with China and India are not unwelcome, but the biggest opportunity is right on our doorstep: an extra £90 billion a year in tax revenue that does not require going cap in hand to those who stand against our values or who facilitate our enemies.
Lifting children out of poverty does not have to put a further strain on working people. We can create a fair tax system in which companies pay their fair share to help those from whom they profit.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. May I gently remind the hon. Lady that this is a very specific debate about the removal of the two-child limit and not a wider debate on tax policy?
Susan Murray
I apologise.
Removing the two-child cap is a vital step, and I hope that the Government choose to listen to more Liberal Democrat proposals.
Steve Witherden (Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr) (Lab)
Scrapping the two-child limit is a clear win-win. It will improve the living standards of around 1.6 million children overnight and prevent hundreds of thousands more from being pushed into poverty in the years ahead, while also leading to better health, development, educational attainment and economic outcomes. These improvements will shape life chances, ease the pressure on our public services and strengthen our wider economy.
This decision is a testament to the campaigners who have worked tirelessly for years to see the two-child limit repealed, and to hon. Members from across the House who have repeatedly called for change, including those who lost the Labour Whip in 2024 for standing firmly by their principles. I strongly support this measure and will, of course, vote in favour.
The cruel two-child limit was introduced by the Conservative Government in 2015, with the stated aim of making savings in the welfare system. The bottom line is that misdirected interventions, based on cuts rather than investment, will never fix a system that is producing deepening poverty.
Poverty and the cost of living crisis are taking a devastating toll on Welsh communities. Across Wales, thousands of people are struggling to make ends meet, going without essentials and falling further into debt. With just three months to go until the elections, it is clear that this crisis will not disappear, and we should pull every available lever to tackle it. Removing the two-child cap and delivering a robust child poverty strategy are welcome steps, but more must be done.
Neil Duncan-Jordan (Poole) (Lab)
Five in six low-income households on universal credit are going without the essentials. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Trussell Trust say that the welfare system must provide the essentials of daily living— food, heating and so on—if we are to tackle deep-seated poverty in this country. Does my hon. Friend agree?
Steve Witherden
I agree with my hon. Friend, who cites some absolutely appalling statistics. An essentials guarantee would embed the principle that universal credit should, at a minimum, protect people from going without food, heating and other basics. A protected minimum floor would ensure that no one falls below a humane safety net.
I hope that the Government continue along the path of reversing cruel Conservative policies that harm the most vulnerable in our society.
David Baines (St Helens North) (Lab)
This has been a very revealing debate in which Members on all sides of the House have made interesting points, but this matter has unfortunately become quite polarising.
On one side of the debate, we have those who work with children and families and see the hugely damaging impact that the two-child limit has had. The Child Poverty Action Group says that
“scrapping the two-child limit is the most cost-effective way to start to reduce child poverty”.
Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner, called removing the two-child limit
“a vital first step towards lifting hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty quickly, with the potential to transform their lives.”
I agree with Unicef, which said:
“No child should be punished for the number of siblings they have.”
Scrapping the two-child limit will lift around 2,500 children in St Helens North out of poverty. In this Parliament, we are on course to lift a record number of children—more than half a million nationally—out of poverty. Free breakfast clubs are opening in more primary schools, more than 5,000 families in St Helens North will benefit from extended free school meals later this year, and working families receive 30 hours of free childcare. Yes, that must all be paid for, and I am aware that it will be paid for by taxpayers, but politics and government are about choices.
The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), said that we should look at the Conservatives’ record in government. The hon. Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst) said that government is about choices. Well, the country is well aware of the Conservatives’ record and the choices that they made, which is why they are sat on the Opposition Benches. This Labour Government are choosing to give all children the opportunity to thrive, and we will all benefit as a result. Every single penny spent in pursuit of that goal is money well spent, in my opinion as a taxpayer.
On the other side of the debate, however, the Leader of the Opposition and others do not take a reasonable and reasoned position but use language that is at best insulting and at worst dangerous. In a single stroke, talk of the so-called “Benefits Street” alienates and denigrates the millions of Britons who receive benefits, many of whom work. They are our neighbours and friends; the people we see day in, day out around our communities. As my hon. Friends have said, most of the children who will be helped by the removal of the two-child limit are from households in which someone works—59% of the households affected by the two-child limit are in work.
I agree with those who say that work should pay, which is why I support this Government’s measures to ensure exactly that—measures that are opposed by those who say that work should pay. Try to square that circle, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I cannot—good luck to them. All I ask is that those who talk in that way about “Benefits Street”, and who denigrate millions of people, including children, think about how those children —never mind their parents—might feel when they see those headlines. We can and should debate policy, but we gain nothing from making people feel worthless.
We also hear a lot about “looking after our own.” I agree that we should look after our own and support the people who need help. That is what the Bill would do through investment in children and the wellbeing of future generations, for their sake and for our collective good. I have seen the impact of poverty on families and children throughout my working life, and I have tried my best to help them. I am sure that all Members, on both sides of the Chamber, have met many families who have struggled and dealt with sudden changes in circumstances, whether from ill health, bereavements, job losses or housing crises.
For families with more than two children, the impact is even more acute. It saddens me—frankly, it staggers me—that some would choose to extend that pain tonight. Every child matters; every child counts; every child has a role to play in our country and its future. I will vote tonight for them.
Gill German (Clwyd North) (Lab)
I know all too well the difference this Bill will make for families across the country. In my constituency, I have seen far too many families struggling to make ends meet. Indeed, that reality was a huge part of what drove me to this place from my primary school classroom and a lead role in local government, so I am pleased and proud to welcome and support the Bill today and the tangible difference it will make in Clwyd North and beyond.
It is important to note that the Bill has been fully costed and is part of an overall strategy. Everyone can call for something, but we have made it happen. Across Wales, this change will help 69,000 children, including 3,100 children in my Clwyd North constituency. I cannot overstate how deeply this change is needed and how proud I am to see it delivered under this Labour Government. It is exactly the kind of action we need to support families of all shapes and sizes after 14 years of Tory austerity, which have left far too many children in poverty.
Although it might seem obvious, I want to emphasise that children are part of these families; they do not exist in a bubble, and they cannot disappear when life gets tough. Supporting families makes children better off. Families face a range of circumstances, often unexpected, and every child deserves to have their needs met regardless of that. Poverty in childhood does nothing but cost society in the long term. Children growing up in poverty are less likely to work as adults, and by the age of 30 they earn 25% less on average.
Mr Adnan Hussain (Blackburn) (Ind)
The hon. Member makes a fantastic point. You either get it or you don’t: what we are doing is giving children an opportunity to better their futures. When I was young, my father, who was an engineer, fell ill, and my mother and my family fell to the state. Today, I am an officer of the court, and I am here as a Member of Parliament. Let us give every child a chance to develop and better their futures.
Gill German
I absolutely agree. Every child deserves the chance to fulfil their potential, and it is our responsibility to make that happen.
I am proud that a Labour Government in Wales have led the way with practical initiatives to support children, including free breakfast in primary schools since 2004, protected by legislation since 2013; universal free school meals for primary school children since 2022—I was incredibly proud to be part of rolling that out across Clwyd North; statutory guidance on school uniform branding that has been in place for years; and the school essentials grant, to help with the cost of going to school.
Although those initiatives are invaluable, I have heard repeatedly for many years, including as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on children in Wales, from organisations such as Barnardo’s Cymru, Citizens Advice Wales and Save the Children Wales that the single most effective step to lift children out of poverty would be to remove the two-child cap. Now, finally, with a Labour Government in Westminster, we have done exactly that, and we have done it in a measured, fully costed way that accounts for every penny needed. Those organisations have long sounded the alarm, and I am proud that it is our Labour Government who have taken action.
As the MP for Clwyd North, I know exactly what I want to see. We need a long-term solution to child poverty. We need parents and families in reliable, fairly paid work to see child poverty off for good. We must rebuild our economy after it was decimated in the worst way. We must create clear pathways into work for young people and those locked out of employment. We must equip people with the skills that are needed for today’s jobs and the jobs of the future, and we must ensure that we have the transport, childcare and infrastructure that are needed so that people can get to work in the first place. I will work tirelessly to ensure that those opportunities are open to people in Clwyd North, particularly our young people. My constituency is ideally placed between two major investment zones, and it is my responsibility to ensure that my residents benefit from the opportunities that that brings.
It is absolutely right that this cap is being lifted here and now, but we must remember that the very best way to ensure that children live well is to ensure that their families are supported and are in fairly paid, reliable work. That must be our relentless focus if we are to reduce our shocking child poverty figures, not just for today, but for generations to come.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I am pleased that I have sat through the whole debate today. The speeches I have heard from Members on the Government Benches have been incredibly eloquent and moving, and I am really pleased that we are where we are now in scrapping the two-child limit.
I have listened to the speeches by Opposition Members. Looking back in history, they were reminiscent of the debates on the Poor Law in the early 19th century. If people remember their history, they will know that there was an economist called Malthus at the time. He suggested that if anything was given to the poor by way of support or benefits, it would make them lazy and make them breed, and he thought that the only way to control the population was to starve the poor. That was reflected in the debate today. I hope that one day we will have a civilised society in which those views are not heard, especially the racist views expressed by Reform on how to separate our society, when we know that there are divisions and that we need to bring people together.
Let me say to my hon. Friends and to those on the Front Bench, please do not spoil this Bill now. I do not want to repeat the arguments, but others have raised the issue of the overall cap. If we allow that to exist, it will spoil the Bill; it will not do the job that we need it to do. Scrapping the two-child limit will lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty, but, as others have said, if we maintain the overall cap, it will mean that 150,000 children will still be hit. That means that we will not have done our job. I know we can argue that we will come back to that, but the longer we delay, the longer those children will live in poverty.
There must be a way to resolve this issue quickly, and this piece of legislation could be that way. In comparison with removing the overall two-child limit, it is—I say this in inverted commas—“relatively inexpensive”. I think the cost would be about £500 million compared with £3 billion, so we could do it. It cannot be done by an amendment from a Back-Bench Member, because only the Government can bring forward proposals that involve increased expenditure in any form.
I appeal to those on the Front Bench: please do not spoil the Bill at this stage. Try to bring us all together in absolute consensus across most of the House and do the job properly. Lift all children out of poverty in this way, because, as I say, I think it will be relatively inexpensive, and the impact of not doing so will be severe.
I do not want to get into another row over this particular issue. I voted against the two-child limit when it was introduced. I railed against it—I do not think that I have ever been so angry in this House as I was that day—and that is why I have continually voted to scrap it. I know that people are anxious about the vote in the King’s Speech debate, but that was a vote not against the King’s Speech but in favour of scrapping the two-child limit. I understand the argument that it must be done as a component part of a Budget so that we can afford it, but that is why I was disappointed that we had not done it first—because it was so meaningful for me to scrap the limit itself. We are where we are now, and I am really pleased.
I just want those on the Government Front Bench to go that little step further and scrap the overall limit. There are other issues, such as rate controls, but we can come back to those at the next stage of tackling child poverty through our strategy. So I make that appeal. Let me just say that although a Back Bencher cannot table an amendment that raises expenditure, we can table ones that make the Bill dependent on further reports being published within a time-limited period on scrapping the overall limit. I will be open in giving notice now that, if the Government do not bring forward a meaningful amendment, I will seek to work with the Clerks to table an amendment that at least commits the Government to consider and report back to the House on scrapping the overall limit. If necessary, I will push that to a vote.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. For the assistance of Back Benchers who still wish to speak, I am about to remove the time limit. [Interruption.]
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)
You’re in trouble now, Madam Deputy Speaker!
The Bill will be remembered as one of the proudest moments of this Government’s first term. Before entering this place, I worked on policy around poverty, and it is something that motivates me every day. A constant theme that I have found, when looking at the evidence, is that the simple solutions are often the best. Indeed, it is interesting that Opposition Members often argue for a simplified tax system for the wealthy, but when it comes to benefits, they have done nothing but buttress the system with more and more complex rules.
Poverty ruins lives. We know that growing up in poverty leads to worse life outcomes, including poorer educational outcomes. Being in poverty as children leaves us three times more likely to be in poverty as adults, and the longer the period of deprivation a child goes through, the worse their chances will be as an adult. It is clear that the impacts of child poverty are deep-rooted. Lifting the two-child benefit cap is one of the single most effective ways to change that trajectory and give people a better outcome for the rest of their lives. If someone is constantly hungry, cold or in damp housing without repairs, the effects on their health, self-esteem and chances are long-lasting.
When kids grow up in poverty, the economy loses out too. Even if Members choose not to care about worse outcomes for children—something I think we have a moral imperative to care about—it is a question of cold economic logic. In 2023, my old employer, the Child Poverty Action Group, estimated that the cost of child poverty was £39 billion a year, and that investing to solve the issue
“would bring similarly large gains to the economy”.
The lifting of this cap alone will ultimately save £3.2 billion a year.
This is the first piece of legislation passed on child poverty since the Child Poverty Act 2010. I remember working on the passage of that Act, and how the now Lord Cameron committing to halving and then ending child poverty. Indeed, he accepted the evidence-based view that relative poverty is appropriate for measuring child poverty, because children with less money are less able to take part in the society to which their friends belong, and are less able to achieve in the same way. It was a bold way to face the electorate in 2010, but it was not matched at all by the Conservatives’ record in power of abject failure. The two-child limit pushed hundreds of thousands more children into poverty. This Bill is shot through with the needs created by the last Government’s 14 years of failure. UNICEF found that between 2013 and 2023, the UK saw the largest increase in relative poverty out of the 37 high-income countries that it measured—an increase of a third. That is a larger increase than across the EU.
We have heard a lot from Members across the House about people in work. When I was working at the Child Poverty Action Group, we had a killer stat. We used to say, “One third of children in poverty have a parent in work.” By the time that lot left government, two thirds of children in poverty had a parent in work. Even if a child does not have a parent in work, I do not believe that the sins of the parents are visited on the children. I do not believe that children have control over where they are born. We hear about choices; should children choose to be born to a different family? The two-child benefit cap is social and economic vandalism that we will reverse when this Bill becomes law. The removal of that cap will lift 450,000 children out of poverty, with 2 million children set to benefit overall. Think about what that means—the lives changed and the futures opened up. If nothing else moves Members, think about the savings to the public purse from fewer children growing up facing the barriers that poverty causes, which follow them into adulthood.
There is more to do. My hon. Friends on the Front Bench will know that I am likely to be very annoying about the further things we have to do, but I welcome the Government’s support for free breakfast clubs, expanding childcare, family hubs and getting more young people into work. I look forward to reviewing how those programmes bring children out of deprivation. Today, I could not be prouder that I will walk through the Division Lobby to give millions of children a fairer start.
Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
The last time we debated this issue, I took many interventions from Conservative Members—there are fewer of them in the Chamber today—who wanted to know whether I would support lifting the two-child cap. As I said at the time, increasing the household incomes of children in poverty is one of several things we need to do to tackle the scourge of child poverty in places like Bishop Auckland, and I trust that the Government’s heart is in the right place on this issue. As such, I am delighted by the proposals they have brought forward and I will enthusiastically vote for the Bill. It will lift 450,000 children out of poverty. Some 2,310 households in my constituency are currently affected by the two-child cap.
As I said, the Bill is only one measure; it needs to be combined with others. We have heard often in this debate that removing the two-child cap is the single quickest way to lift children out of poverty. That is because we measure poverty by household income, but poverty is multi-dimensional, and it is important that we address its multifaceted aspects. Combined with other measures, the Bill will make a real difference. Those measures include: the Renters’ Rights Act 2025; the Employment Rights Act 2025; increases in the national minimum wage; the falling interest rates that are cutting mortgages; the new rules on school uniforms; the 30 hours of free childcare; free breakfast clubs in every school to reduce the early morning stress on working parents; the extension of free school meals to a further 4,500 children in Bishop Auckland; the extension of the warm home discount to more households; and investment in youth hubs, family hubs, and arts and culture. All those things will help to support children in poverty, which is why I am proud to be part of this Labour Government at this time.
At a roundtable in my constituency shortly after I was elected, we invited educators and charities—people who work with children—to talk to us about their experience of child poverty. There were tears in the room as headteachers talked of having to bring food into school to feed hungry children; of a child whose uniform was wet because there was no glass in the window of their home; of children living in cold and damp homes; and of children in Shildon who are excluded from extracurricular activities because they have to get the only free bus home, as their parents cannot afford the £1 bus fare to take a later bus. I came here today to speak on behalf of those children and to be their voice.
I will address some of the arguments that we have heard against the Bill. Too much of this debate has focused on party politics, rather than children. The Opposition seem to be simultaneously arguing that we should have done this sooner and should not be doing it at all. As I have engaged with the Government over the past 18 months and had many conversations, including in No. 10 and with Ministers, I have been reassured throughout that the Prime Minister has a strong personal commitment to eradicating child poverty, so it did not surprise me at all to see this legislation brought forward.
The opposition to what we are doing today is based on falsehoods. The first is that the Bill is about supporting children in workless households. As my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn) said a moment ago, the children are not to blame. We can never blame a child for being born in a poor home. Also, 59% of the families affected by the two-child cap are families in work. We also know that universal credit requires people to show evidence of actively seeking work. People cannot simply sit on universal credit—it is not that easy. We know, too, that it is often a temporary measure.
I think about my family. Twelve years ago, I was working as a gardener on just above the minimum wage while I was completing my PhD, and my wife was working as a carer. We relied for a time on having our income topped up by tax credits, as they were called then. I almost crossed out that bit of my speech, because I know I will get an onslaught of abuse just for saying so, such is the rhetoric in our country right now, demonising people who ever draw on our social security system. My twin sister became a single parent, not of her choosing, and raised three children, two of whom had a disability. I remember her telling me that when she moved into her council house, a friend told her that she could paint the floor and put duvets at the windows to keep it warmer. My sister put herself through a degree in pharmacy at Durham University and now works in my constituency as a pharmacist for a GP practice. My brother, who was the highest earner in our family, died at the age of 35, leaving behind three children. People fall on hard times, and when they do, a caring society should be there for each other.
One of the other lies we are hearing in this debate is that the Bill is funded by a tax on workers. Other parties seek to divide people, telling those who are just about managing that their taxes are paying for people who are not working, and it is not true. We know what is funding this Bill and many other things: a fairer tax system, abolishing the non-dom status, a mansion tax, and the remote gaming duty, which will generate an extra £1 billion. It is about fairness and who pays.
Finally, there is this lie that keeping children in poverty is good or necessary for the economy. It is not. The welfare bill increased by £88 billion under the Conservative Government, despite the real value of welfare decreasing. They oversaw a real-terms decrease in living standards. That led to a generation of children who were malnourished, who experienced family breakdown and who were denied opportunities to become a generation of adults realising their full potential. We had an increase in sickness and in days lost to sick pay, an increase in mental health disorders and a 250% increase in looked-after children. We have rising cost pressures on Government as a result of those policies.
As I finish, I must turn my attention to the comments made by the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin), who is no longer in her place. I intend to write to her, because I was deeply offended by the suggestion that people who were not born in this country, but work hard, are somehow less. My wife was not born in this country; she came here as a teenager. She worked in a meat factory and as a carer. More recently, she went through university and now works as a midwife in our NHS. I am so proud of her, and I find the idea disgusting that she should somehow be less entitled because of her birth. Reform needs to rethink that.
To conclude, I will be voting with the Government tonight, and I re-emphasise that this is one of several things that we need to do in our national mission to end the scourge of child poverty in our country once and for all.
Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)
When the Labour Government came to office, 4.5 million children were living in poverty, and I believe that that is a moral stain on our nation. It has been a central mission of this Labour Government to tackle child poverty in all its forms. They are taking a range of measures, like introducing breakfast clubs. We have had some fantastic pilots of those in my constituency, and we have heard from schools that provide them that attendance is improving as a result. That is yet another impact of tackling childhood shortages. The Government are also extending free school meals to more children, while family hubs will help families who are struggling to get the support they need, and of course, there is more childcare support for working parents, who are too often kept out of work by the high costs of childcare.
Today, though, we are talking about ending the two-child limit on universal credit. This measure alone will lift nearly half a million children out of poverty, and in my constituency of Morecambe and Lunesdale about 1,900 kids will benefit. It is not just the right thing to do, in and of itself; the evidence shows that tackling poverty in childhood is more cost-effective than mopping up the damage later—the damage of poverty that was outlined so eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams). The fact is that poverty kills. It is as simple as that.
Some will say that poverty is caused by fecklessness or laziness, ignoring the 70% of children affected by this limit who live in working households; ignoring the fact that 15% of those affected by the cap are mothers with really young babies—mothers who we would normally not expect to work; ignoring the significant number of people affected who are in ill health or have caring responsibilities; and ignoring the fact that the cost of living crisis, which was brought upon us by the Conservatives and by reliance on foreign gas, means that people who could afford their children when they had them are now struggling to put food on the table.
About six months after the election, I knocked on a door in Morecambe, and it was opened by a lady who was really distressed. Once I got talking to her, it turned out that she had five kids. She said to me, “I could afford those children when I had them. I would never have had these children had I not been able to afford them.” She worked days, her husband worked nights, and she was on the minimum wage. They were struggling to prevent their children from finding out just how difficult a financial situation they were in. I was able to tell that lady that in a few months’ time, thanks to the Labour Government, she would receive a pay rise, because we were putting the minimum wage up—yet another measure that we are taking to tackle child poverty.
Josh Fenton-Glynn
One of the most distressing things that I discovered when I was working at Church Action on Poverty and talking to parents of children in poverty was how often mothers went without food. My hon. Friend has talked about families struggling so that their children did not find out. Does she agree that that is what we are changing today, and that that is the reality of this policy?
Lizzi Collinge
My hon. Friend is entirely right. Parents, in my experience, will do anything to protect their children from the harsh realities of life. It is parents who go without food. It is parents who have to go to the food bank. I remember the first time I met the people running the food bank in Morecambe, in 2017. I walked up to them and said, “One day, I will put you out of business.” And they said, “Thank you”, because their strategic aim is not to exist. Food banks should not exist.
Some of the people who oppose the lifting of this limit are also willing to ignore the fact that the policy itself did not work on its own terms. It did not limit the number of children born, but merely condemned them to living in poverty. They are also willing to ignore the evidence that dealing with poverty in childhood is much more cost-effective than mopping up later. It prevents huge costs later down the line in terms of education, health or indeed the criminal justice system.
I am not saying that there are no feckless parents. Of course there are feckless parents, and there have always been feckless parents. I remember my great-grandma telling the story of having to go to the pub on a Friday night to try to get the housekeeping money off her drunkard father. She used to tell it as a funny story with a smile on her face, but it was not funny then and it is not funny now. I was really quite shocked at Reform saying that it would keep the two-child limit on universal credit and instead put that money into reducing the cost of beer. I love a drink—do not get me wrong—but I cannot help but think that, if Reform Members were around 100 years ago, they would have been standing with my drunkard ancestor, rather than with the little girl with her hand out for the housekeeping money. Do we condemn hundreds of thousands of children to poverty because there are a few feckless parents?
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that fecklessness is not a trait exhibited only by poorer people in our country?
Lizzi Collinge
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that fecklessness is not limited to any one socioeconomic group. It is interesting how people born into great wealth consider their position to be due only to their very hard work, yet they consider it to be other people’s own fault if they are born into poverty. That is really quite shocking.
More than 1 million children live in households unable to afford even the most basic necessities of life. There are parents choosing between heating and eating, children doing their homework on the floor in housing that is too crowded to provide a space to study, whole families staying in one room because that is all they can afford to heat, and kids wheezing due to damp. What compounds this heartbreak is that childhood poverty festers and grows. It infects people’s prospects in education, health and employment across their whole life.
Rather than tackling that, discussions about welfare inevitably descend into conversations about merit: who deserves help and who does not. These are children we are talking about—children entirely reliant on adults for their existence and their support, and entirely reliant on Governments such as ours to make sure they are looked after if, from no fault of their own, their parents do not have enough money for the necessities of life.
If this Victorian attitude to the deserving and undeserving poor had won the day previously, we would not have had any of the public services that we now take for granted. We would not have had free education, because why should parents not just pay for education themselves? We would not have had the NHS, because why should people not just pay for doctors themselves? As we know, Reform Members would be very happy to get rid of the NHS and bring in a private insurance system. None of us earned those things through our own merit; we inherited them from people who recognised that everyone deserves a good chance in life and the chance to thrive and succeed, whether by starting their own business, getting an education or doing whatever it is that will make their life a good life. That is the obligation we have to our children.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and others have shown that scrapping the two-child benefit limit could drive the single largest fall in child poverty in a single Parliament. My local Citizens Advice has done a brilliant report saying that scrapping the two-child limit is the fastest and most cost-effective intervention to tackle child poverty.
Stuart Anderson
The hon. Member is making an impassioned speech. If the Joseph Rowntree Foundation says that this will be the biggest change made in a Parliament —a full parliamentary term—why are the Government doing it now after refusing to do it 18 months ago?
Lizzi Collinge
That is actually a reasonable question. The answer is that we had to make sure the country could afford it and we had to take a strategic approach to tackling child poverty. What we were not going to do, given the absolute state of the economy when we came into government, was make very quick decisions on such a scale. We did it properly, carefully and as part of a strategy. [Interruption.] I am interested by Opposition Members’ interpretation of reality.
Let us not forget—moving on to something else that seems to have been missed in this discussion—that the families hit hardest by the two-child limit are those who spend the largest share of their income on absolute essentials. Lifting those families out of poverty not only reduces hardship, but actually boosts the local economy in the same way that raising the minimum wage does. In Morecambe and Lunesdale, I have thousands of fantastic small local businesses who rely on local people having enough money in their pockets to go out and spend, whether it is in the corner shop, the local supermarket or the clothes shop on the front where I get my kids’ school uniforms. They rely on people spending and we know that people who are hard up spend every single penny that they have. I have spoken in this Chamber before about the cost saving of prevention. This measure is no different. Investing in our children now pays dividends later, improving educational outcomes and raising adult earnings.
Even if, in the face of all contradictory evidence, we accept the myth sown by the right that all the parents affected by the cap are somehow scroungers and feckless, I still do not believe that their children should have to live in poverty. Using children as pawns to influence parental behaviour or illustrate moral lessons not only does not work, it is profoundly unjust. And it did not work. Even by its own logic, the two-child benefit limit has been woefully ineffective. Back in 2019, a cross-party Work and Pensions Committee found “no evidence” that it was working as intended. It had next to no effect on employment rates and hours worked in affected households, and the stated effect on birth rate is so tiny that it is doubtful that it is greater than the margin of error in the data. The cap has not led to greater employment rates or a higher number of hours worked. What the cap has done is make childcare and travel costs an even higher barrier for those households who are trying desperately to work more.
The two-child benefit cap also assumed that all pregnancies are planned, in full knowledge of the Government’s social security policy. I do not know about others, but most people I know are not over the details of social security policy. We know that it is simply not true that all pregnancies are planned. We know that contraceptives fail. Stuff happens. I remember when Tony Blair had an oopsie baby in the ’90s. With apologies to the Blairs for referring to them, I remember my dad saying, “Well, if the Prime Minister can’t always get it right, how we do expect every single person in the country to do so?”
We also know—it became really clear from the previous Conservative policy—that a startling number of children are conceived through rape. The policy meant that traumatised women were having to disclose their rape to faceless bureaucrats just to try to get enough money to raise the child who had been conceived through rape. That is surely compounding the trauma of survivors of sexual assault.
Finally, our country’s future depends on investing in the potential of our children—all our children, wherever they were born and however they were conceived. Today, we are saying that there are no second-class children in Britain and that under a Labour Government child poverty is not an inevitability. It is a choice and we choose to end it.
Dr Jeevun Sandher (Loughborough) (Lab)
Madam Deputy Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to speak for the next hour, while there is no time limit. [Laughter.] Buckle in!
I want to start today’s speech by first addressing what the Conservatives said and why we need state support to help end child poverty in the technological era we are in. I also want to make clear why we are ending the two-child limit. In the economic sense, yes, it is a pounds and pence issue—we save more money by feeding kids today—but far more importantly, morally no child in this country should be going hungry.
Before I get to that, I would like to share with the House where I spent two years of my life between 2016 and 2018, when I was the economist working in Somaliland’s Ministry of Finance. I was there during what was then its worst drought in living memory. When drought came to Somaliland—one of the poorest nations on earth—it meant failing harvests, dying livestock and rising hunger. I will never forget what that hunger looked like and what it felt like for a whole nation.
I could understand what was happening in Somaliland, even if it was incredibly difficult, but I was shocked and appalled on returning to this country to see children going hungry here—in the fifth richest nation on earth. Those children went hungry after the introduction of the two-child limit. Poverty went up in the largest families, who were affected by the two-child limit, and child hunger went up. Food bank parcels were unknown in my childhood; there were a million handed out in 2017, and three million by the time the Conservatives left office. Most shamefully of all, child malnutrition has doubled over the past decade. That is the shameful legacy of the two-child limit and what it meant for child hunger in this country.
Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Trussell Trust was founded in this country in 2000, under a Labour Government, and that the Department for Work and Pensions did not recommend that it be offered as a solution to families in need at the time? It is one thing to talk about food banks, but it is important to ensure that we acknowledge when they were first set up in this country.
Dr Sandher
Did the guidance change between 2016 and 2024? Could the hon. Lady explain to me from the Opposition Front Bench why the number of food bank parcels tripled from the introduction of the two-child limit to 2024? I will give way if so.
Rebecca Smith
Well, without having the statistics in front of me right this second—[Interruption.] No, let me finish. We had the global pandemic, when there was a huge need for food banks. In fact, it was the Conservative Government who invested hundreds of thousands of pounds in food banks to ensure that nobody went without. The council for which I was a cabinet member at the time used the funding from the Conservative Government directly to ensure that poverty did not increase over the covid pandemic. If numbers went up, we have to ensure that that fact is reflected.
Dr Sandher
The rise happened before covid; it happened after the two-child limit was introduced. I agree with the hon. Lady on one point: she is not across the statistics.
Opposition Members have advanced an argument that I think is fair. They ask why we do not just create lots of jobs, which is the way to get out of poverty. The way to get out of poverty is through work, right? I want to take that argument head-on. We are living in a different technological era. In the post-war era, we had the advance and expansion of mass-production manufacturing, which meant there were good jobs for people as they left school. They left school, went to the local factory and earned a decent wage, meaning that they could buy a house and support a family.
Then, in the 1980s, in this country and indeed across high-income nations, we saw deindustrialisation and automation, bringing the replacement of those mechanical jobs with machines. Like other high-income nations across the world, we have been left with those who can use computers effectively—high-paid graduate workers—and lots of low-paid jobs everywhere else. It is not just us confronting that problem, although it is worse here because of decisions made in the 1980s; we are seeing it across high-income nations. As a result, state support is needed to ensure that those on low pay can afford a decent life.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Dr Sandher
In a moment.
This is not, by the way, the first time in history that we have confronted this problem. In the early part of the industrial revolution, between 1750 and 1850, we saw machines replace human beings. What did we see then? The economy grew by 60% per person, but people had less to eat. Men were shorter in 1850 than in 1750 because of the change of the technological era. I think my right hon. Friend would like to intervene.
Gareth Snell
I am an hon. Friend, not right honourable, though I welcome the promotion.
I have listened to this debate from outside the Chamber this afternoon and heard many Conservative Members talk about how the route out of poverty is through work. I absolutely and fundamentally agree with that, so I find it completely incongruous that whenever they have had the opportunity to vote for our make work pay Act, to increase stability in work and create well-paid jobs, they have voted against it. Indeed, only last week, the shadow Secretary of State made an argument for cutting the minimum wage for young people. How does my hon. Friend think that someone can argue, on the one hand, for work as a way out of poverty, but on the other, restrict the opportunities for work, push down pay and reduce the opportunities created for working people?
Dr Sandher
I agree with my hon. Friend. Conservative Members have often spoken about their employment record in office and how many jobs were created. Yet while that happened, child poverty and child hunger rose. Something is not right in their model of the world and there is something to review there.
There is no law of economics that says that just because someone works hard and is a decent person, they will earn a wage that can support a family. That is not the technological era we live in today. That is why we are ending the two-child limit today and I am so proud that we are doing so.
In an economic sense—in pounds and pence—as Labour Members realise and have stated, when we ensure that children have enough to eat, they learn more today and they earn more tomorrow. The cost of child poverty every single year is around £40 billion. The cost of ending the two-child limit is about £3.5 billion. It makes sense to invest today so that our children can eat and learn more, yet this is not just a matter of pounds and pence; as an economist, I often talk about that and I get it, but it is about so much more. This is about the moral argument. No child in this country should go hungry—no ifs, no buts and no exceptions. That is why I am so proud of this Bill, I am so proud to vote to end the two-child limit and I am so proud to be sat on the Labour Benches.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
The child poverty crisis that we inherited from the previous Government is, indeed, stark. In 2014, 16.5% of children were in relative poverty and by 2024, that had risen to 21.8%. The simple truth is that Conservative Members oppose a measure that lifts children out of poverty. They have not changed.
Successive Conservative Governments—and yes, the Liberal Democrats, who cannot get off scot-free, given the coalition—carried out policies that led to hundreds of thousands more children being pushed into poverty. To be precise, the figure is 900,000 more , leaving 4.5 million children living in poverty across our country. That is a shameful number, as large as the population of countries such as Croatia or Ireland. By the end of the Conservatives’ time in office, almost a third of children in the UK were living in poverty. That tells us exactly who they prioritised and who they did not. Even now, they would undo progress.
Stuart Anderson
Will the hon. Member say what statistic backs up the statement that a third of the children in the UK were living in poverty?
John Slinger
The number of children—[Interruption.] The number of children in poverty rose substantially.
Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)
I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that the statistics on below-average-income households are published annually by the Department for Work and Pensions, which is the source of the statistic that he so cleverly deployed in the course of his argument.
John Slinger
That is indeed the statistic that I was reaching for in my notes, and I thank my hon. Friend.
Even now, Opposition Members would undo progress. They would reintroduce the limit; they would make things worse. And as for Reform UK— [Hon. Members: “Where are they?”] Exactly! Where are they? We have seen populist policy hokey-cokey already today. It was probably taking place while the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin) was speaking.
Josh Fenton-Glynn
The Reform policy really is quite something, as I am sure my hon. Friend would agree. In fact, if someone lost their child benefit because of the Reform policy, it would take 345 pints a week to make a saving. So it does not really help anyone, but it does hurt those in the most poverty. Will my hon. Friend recommend that people do not listen to the easy answers of Reform and actually work to make people’s lives better?
John Slinger
I thank my hon. Friend. I was very moved by his speech, which he delivered from a position of great knowledge and great concern built up over a very impressive career. He is absolutely right. I, of course, would not recommend people to take too seriously policies that are, as I said, populist policy hokey-cokey. To scrap or to reinstate? It is hard to tell. What we have seen from Reform UK is the concept of political triangulation being stretched absolutely to breaking point. In fact, it has broken, with some of the populist nonsense that Reform has spoken about in recent days.
Dr Sandher
I like a pint as well, as it happens—sometimes more than one—but I think it is fair to say that parents across this country will not appreciate getting 5p off each pint they buy, knowing that it will make more children hungry. I am pretty shocked by the trade-off there. I agree with supporting our pubs, and I will do it every single weekend as part of our patriotic duty, but that is not fair. There is another, more damaging, side to this which says that if we just deport and attack enough people, it will make us richer. That is absolutely something that we on this side of the House should reject, and something that Members on the other side of the House sometimes reject as well.
John Slinger
I could not have put it better, particularly the point my hon. Friend made about enjoying a pint. I too enjoy a pint, but linking something as serious as tackling child poverty to the price of a pint in our pubs is trivialising an incredibly serious topic—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) is speaking from a sedentary position. Would he like to intervene?
Dr Evans
I just see the irony of the hon. Member talking about linking this to alcohol, which is a serious problem. Gambling is a serious problem as well, and his party has directly linked this to gambling, even though this is not a hypothecated tax. Could he explain the dichotomy between the two?
John Slinger
It is perfectly acceptable and reasonable for a Government such as ours to take measures in Budgets to provide the resources necessary to enact a policy, as this Bill would do, that will lift so many children out of poverty. I think the hon. Member makes a fairly fatuous point, if I may say so.
Sam Rushworth
Does my hon. Friend share my confusion at the point that has just been made? Does it not illustrate that all of this is about choices, and that the choice that is being made on this side of the House is, yes, to increase the tax on gambling and on mansions in order to decrease child poverty? The choice that Reform would make would be to increase child poverty for 5p off a pint.
John Slinger
I am assuming that the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth is opposing the policy before us today. So you actually do not want to take the measure that we are going to take—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. “You”, Mr Slinger—I have mentioned this to you so many times. Let us start again.
John Slinger
I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman is opposing the policy that will reduce child poverty by an enormous number.
Conservative Members have not really even tried to defend their record. Perhaps that is because it is indefensible. Their decisions were not accidents; they were choices. The consequences were known, the damage was predictable and the outcome is now painfully clear. Years of ignoring child poverty have left this country with many problems, including the number of children not in education, employment or training. That is an inheritance that this Government are now tackling, not least through the excellent work of Alan Milburn and his investigation into work and child poverty that was commissioned by my right hon. Friend the Work and Pensions Secretary.
Children are being condemned to a lifetime of economic inactivity, which is bad for them and their future wealth. As the “Keep Britain Working” report found, someone leaving the workforce in their 20s would lose up to £1 million in earnings. It is also bad for their health. Having four more years in education on average relates to a 16% reduction in mortality rates and reduces the risk of heart disease and diabetes. It is also bad for the country—all that untapped potential and all that unnecessary benefit spend.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Will the hon. Member give way?
John Slinger
I will not give way.
The arguments we heard about parental responsibility, the claim that people have children to get benefits, are short-sighted, wrong and, frankly, insulting. The shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), could not cite any evidence for her claims.
David Baines
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. He says no evidence was given for those arguments. That is because there is no evidence, and yet opponents of the policy continue to make the arguments. Does he agree that it is damaging, dangerous and insulting to children and to families that are working hard up and down the land to do the best they can?
John Slinger
I agree with my hon. Friend that it is insulting, and it was surprising that the shadow Secretary of State could not cite any evidence at all.
Regardless of any two-child limit, parents will of course still have children, and those children must never be punished for the circumstances of their birth. The best way to support them, the single most effective way to lift them out of poverty, is this Bill.
Some Members across the House and some across our country implied that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor does not care about child poverty. They implied and claimed that she does not care about economic inactivity and our moral duty. That accusation was not just wrong; it was deeply disrespectful, particularly given her long record of campaigning on these issues.
Graham Stuart
I was not here earlier in the debate, so please forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman talked about Members being able to back up their assertions. Who was it in the debate who suggested that the Chancellor did not care? I have never heard anyone on the Opposition side of the House saying that she does not care. Whether she is capable of dealing with it is a different matter entirely, but who was it who said she did not care, because I am sure we would all want to take it up with them and tell them to change their line?
John Slinger
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention; I always enjoy them. I found this one particularly amusing—and I very much respect and like the right hon. Gentleman—given that I was not actually quoting. I did not say, “And I quote”. I am allowed to use words without having to justify every single one. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman knows full well that I was referring to the general view of hon. and right hon. Members in this House. [Interruption.] I think I have dealt with that—it was a good effort, but I will move on.
This measure, made possible by the policies of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor—let’s not forget that—will lift 450,000 children out of poverty, and I am proud to say that that includes 2,020 children in Rugby. Let me be clear: lifting the two-child limit is not the whole answer; it is part of the Government’s wider mission. I say to people outside this Chamber, “Do not let the doomsters, the gloomsters, the cynics and the propagandists mislead you.” In just 19 months, as part of that wider mission, this Labour Government have achieved the following: day-one rights for paternity and parental leave; Best Start family hubs bringing health, parenting and wellbeing under one roof; 30 hours of funded childcare from nine months old; free breakfast clubs, with 405 children in my constituency of Rugby benefiting from the April roll-out; minimum and living wages up; record investment in schools; apprenticeships reformed; full funding for apprenticeships for under-25s in our small and medium-sized enterprises; the youth guarantee, mentioned by the Chancellor in the recent Budget; ensuring routes into work, training and education; and Young Futures hubs and youth hubs. May I please ask Ministers on the Front Bench whether I can have one of those hubs in Rugby? Helping children is about more than lifting the two-child cap. This Government do not, and should not, define our moral purpose solely by the pounds we give to those in need—although we should of course give money to those in need. Unlike the Conservatives, we will do those things I listed and, of course, spend money on lifting the two-child limit.
We are glad to do that because it is not just about poverty in financial terms; it is about the poverty of aspiration for our children, which all too often results from the policies of the parties of the right, and it is about the poverty of ambition for what a Government can and should do to unleash the potential of all children. We reject that poverty too. Opportunity, prosperity and dignity for all cannot come—whether through the animal spirits of the economy or the progressive policies of a Government such as ours—unless child poverty is ended once and for all.
In conclusion, we are the Labour party; we want to give young people the skills and opportunities, and to create the ecosystem, that will unleash their potential. That starts by preventing their early years from being blighted unnecessarily by poverty. We also stand for compassion and support for those who really need it, and that is what we will provide. Ending the two-child limit, and the wider measures I have outlined, are vital to ensuring that our young people become the architects of their futures, not merely tenants living in a world shaped by the older generations, by vested interests and, indeed, by those who are opposed to this Bill.
Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab)
I first put on record my thanks to my Deep Heat patch; three hours of bobbing with a bad back has been a very special introduction to this debate. I welcome the opportunity to highlight an issue that is the driving mission of so many of us and the reason why we are in this House.
Like many Members, I had the opportunity over December to attend services at some of the wonderful churches across Peterborough. That was not just Christmas spirit; there is nothing more majestic than the raising of voices “to the newborn King” by a packed congregation in a 900-year-old cathedral. At every service, I met congregations dedicated to helping others in my city. Child poverty was at the heart of those conversations—the impact of child poverty on the children themselves, but also its corrosive impact on parents and on all of us in society. Nothing goes to the heart of Labour’s values more than addressing the corrosion that poverty causes in young lives, and I am deeply proud to speak in this Second Reading debate on one of the most important pieces of legislation that this Government are bringing forward.
I would like to use this opportunity to thank the Peterborough food bank volunteers and our Care Zone furniture volunteers, whom I have met consistently since being elected, for the incredible work they have done to support and help families and children in need. I also thank the volunteers at KingsGate community church, who do so much to help families in need with food and debt advice, and to navigate the still-too-clunky networks of the DWP and the state.
That help is needed; we all know the national statistics. The hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) mentioned the Trussell Trust, and I looked up the figures in preparing my contribution: in 2010, the last year of the Labour Government, the Trussell Trust reported that just over 43,000 emergency food parcels were handed out; in the last year of the Conservative Government, more than 3 million food parcels were handed out.
Rebecca Smith
No one has ever told me that they would adore to hear me speak in this place! I completely appreciate the point that the hon. Gentleman is making, but I too have been doing some research while this debate has been going on. It is worth noting that those food bank numbers have increased because they only count Trussell Trust food banks, so the more food banks join the Trussell Trust network, the more those numbers go up.
In my city, where, as I may have mentioned, I held the cost of living portfolio during the pandemic—[Interruption.] There’s no need to yawn! My city did not need the additional food bank that was set up, and it ended up having to send food away. If that food bank had joined the Trussell Trust, it would have added to those numbers and distorted the figures. While I am not saying that there might not have been an increase, I believe it is worth recognising that particular point.
Andrew Pakes
It is a very unusual way to defend food bank use to say that it is because poverty is now being counted in a better way. The Trussell Trust is very clear that when Labour was last in government, food banks existed as an emergency provision for when people fell through the cracks of the welfare system. The industrialisation of food banks is shocking, as is the justification of it by the Conservatives.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
I commend my hon. Friend for his speech. We all have to admit that when the Conservatives came into government with the Liberal Democrats in 2010, they unleashed their social security cuts on our communities. That is what has devastated our communities. Food bank use went up, child poverty went up and disabled people’s rights went down because of the policies of the Conservative Government. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is only this Labour Government who are committed to eradicating child poverty and ensuring that many children, including thousands in my Battersea constituency, will be lifted out of poverty as a result of lifting the two-child benefit cap?
Andrew Pakes
I wholeheartedly agree. There is something wrong with society when Members of Opposition parties, including my Liberal Democrat colleagues, do not mention the long-lasting impacts of austerity on our public services, our welfare provision and the support given to families.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank my hon. Friend for recently welcoming me to the Peterborough museum and art gallery, where we went to a “Dr Who” exhibit and discovered that Davros was considering defecting to Reform. I thank my hon. Friend for his excellent speech. I recently talked to the chief executive officer of the food bank in Harlow, and he spoke of the big difference that this policy will make. Does my hon. Friend agree that the people who work for food banks want them not to be needed any longer, and that this Government should try to achieve that?
Andrew Pakes
I agree with my hon. Friend. I put on the record my tribute to all food bank volunteers, not just for holding me to account and making sure that I am here today to support policies like this, but for making the case that he so powerfully makes: they want food banks to no longer exist. Whenever I speak to Christians Against Poverty, churches, mosques, temples and so many of the faith communities that are important to the social infrastructure that holds poverty at bay for so many families, they all say to me that they wish that they did not have to provide food banks and that they could spend more time doing other things. It is our job, starting today with this Bill, to put that into practice for them.
Graham Stuart
The hon. Gentleman is being most generous with his time. I agree with the hon. Member for Harlow (Chris Vince). Does the hon. Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) agree with him that it would be a sign of this Government’s success if we saw fewer food parcels being put out by food banks by the end of this Parliament than we do today?
Andrew Pakes
Certainly. Many of my food banks would support the single policy that we are voting on today, so I hope the right hon. Gentleman will join me in the Lobby tonight to vote to eradicate food banks. This Bill will put money into the pockets of families. It will not just lift their children out of poverty but—as my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge), who is no longer in her place, said—put money into the local economy.
If we ever wanted a symbol of the legacy of Tory failure in government, it is this: in my city of Peterborough alone, nearly 43% of children are growing up in poverty. In the North ward of Peterborough, which is a two-minute walk from my house, six out of 10 children are growing up in poverty. That is a stain on our society, and I am dedicated to eradicating it.
I am proud of the work that my council does, but this policy will help. I am proud of the focus of Peterborough city council, pushed on by groups such as Peterborough Citizens, which has ended the practice of children sleeping in bed-and-breakfast and hotel room accommodation. I was equally proud in the autumn to welcome the Prime Minister to Welland Academy, where he made the national announcement of the roll-out of free school meals for all children on universal credit. An incredible 16,000 extra children will benefit from free school meals this September because of the action taken by this Government, which will be delivered in the coming months.
We all know that we need to do more. The Bill is an investment in our country’s future. The single act of voting for it will lift 450,000 children out of poverty, including 10,000 in Peterborough. As many hon. Friends and comrades in this place have said, almost half of the families on universal credit are in work. Child poverty makes it harder for children to get on in life, and that hurts our economy. I am pleased to see that some Conservative Members have returned to the debate. I thought for a while that the lights were on but nobody was home—it turns out that that applies just to their policy on child poverty rather than to them as individuals. The Conservatives would do well to remember that these figures are not merely statistics; they tell a story of lost opportunity, of lost moments of childhood, and of lost potential not just for the affected children but for our local economies.
Gareth Snell
My hon. Friend’s point about lost moments of childhood is often missed. It is all well and good to talk about the impact on parents and on the economy, but having grown up in poverty, I remember walking to school with a hole in my shoe, and not being able to ask my grandparents for anything because they could not afford it. I remember feigning not wanting to go on school trips because I knew that they could not afford it. I remember making sure that the holes in my jumper were hidden when I got home because I knew that they could not afford to replace it. Those memories stick with people throughout their lives and continue to have an effect on them once they have grown up. This is not just about the economics of the here and now; it is about the real-life impact on young people today and in the future. I thank my hon. Friend for ensuring that those voices are heard.
Andrew Pakes
I entirely endorse my hon. Friend’s comments. It sounds as if we may have had similar childhoods, only in different parts of the country.
The statistics cited in this debate do not sit in isolation. It is no coincidence that, alongside high levels of child poverty, Peterborough also has some of the highest levels of low-paid and insecure work in the country. At the last count, and going by the Government’s definition, one in three working people in Peterborough are in chronically insecure work—largely zero-hours shift work, which the Conservative party voted to keep in our economy, while we voted to eradicate it. Peterborough has one of the highest numbers of adults with no qualifications. Despite our city’s wonderful industrial heritage, nothing says more about the wasted opportunities of the last 14 years than the 70% drop in level 2 and level 3 apprenticeships in Peterborough—that comes at a cost to the country.
Although I have painted a picture of the difficulties that many families face in my city, I pay tribute to the incredible ingenuity, determination and grit that parents demonstrate—often in difficult times and despite the adversity that they face—to do their best, look after their children, raise ambition and give people jobs and opportunities. We were sent here to serve them, and we will help them by voting for the Bill.
To be honest, the Conservatives have some brass neck to talk about poverty, as do our colleagues and friends in Reform UK. At one point, I thought that they were plastic Tories, but now that the transfer window has closed, I just think that they are Tories. I represent a wonderful, brilliant and diverse city, so the naked racism in the Reform amendment, which talks about denying support for hard-working families based on the birthplace of the parents, is an affront to democracy and to British values.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)
The hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time. Does he not agree with us that British people should be put first?
Andrew Pakes
I think that my community is full of wonderful British people—people who stand up for British values, and who go out every single day and work to do the best for their children and community. If you want to have a fight based on British values, bring it on, because every day Labour Members will defend—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I respectfully remind the hon. Gentleman not to use the word “you”. He was suggesting that he might like to have a fight with me, and that would not end well.
Andrew Pakes
I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am wearing a deep heat patch for my bad back, so there would be no fight from me today. I apologise to the House for the passion I have for British values and the hard work of people in my community, who I will stand up for every day against the plastic patriots and others who seek to attack them.
Andrew Pakes
I will try to make some progress.
We have inherited an economic and moral failure by the previous Government, and this Bill will start to put that right by injecting money into the pockets of families and supporting children. It is also why I welcome the youth guarantee and the focus on earning and learning for this Government. The DWP has described Peterborough as a national youth unemployment hotspot, and it is a national hotspot for child poverty, too. Through the work of this Government to address the needs of children in poverty—the expansion of family hubs, the support for breakfast clubs, the investment in schools and early years alongside the investment in further education and apprenticeships—we are beginning to turn the tide.
What matters to the people of my constituency is having the chance to get on in life, to support their children and to have pride in their community and their families. Today, with this Bill, which I hope all Members will vote for, we begin to restore pride in our community by giving dignity back to parents in difficult situations.
Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)
I stand here as a proud representative of the Black Country and the trade union movement. Black Country people work hard. We are proud and we are resilient, but 50 years of deindustrialisation and 14 years of Tory austerity mean that wages are low, poverty is high, unemployment is high, economic inactivity is high, and many families have to rely on universal credit to make sure there is enough money to get to the end of the month. I resent the implication that areas like mine, where universal credit payments are high, are somehow “Benefits Street”.
Antonia Bance
I will get to the right hon. Member.
It was the Conservative party that changed the benefits system to give us one benefit for all circumstances, in and out of work. For the Conservatives to now attempt to invent a deserving and undeserving poor dichotomy, when they made that change to one unified system—which was the correct one—is a little bit galling.
Graham Stuart
The hon. Lady is, as ever, showing a powerful oratorical style, but it is so easy when doing that to get one’s facts wrong. Unemployment, I am sure she will recognise, was at a near record low when the Conservatives left office and has risen by more than 20% in the less than two years that Labour has run the country. I know the hon. Lady is careful with the facts and will want to retract the point about unemployment under the Conservatives. Whatever other ills she wants to attribute to us, I do not think she can genuinely attribute that.
Antonia Bance
The right hon. Member will note that I was making a point about the comparative rates in different areas of the country, including my own, and the impacts of deindustrialisation over the last 50 years, rather than about national rates.
On the Labour Benches, we deal with the world as it is—human lives in all their messy complexity—because everyone is deserving of dignity, opportunity and hope, and every child deserves a decent start. That is why I am so proud today to say this: if you get ill or lose your job, if—heaven forbid—your partner dies, or if your husband beats you up and you have to grab your kids and run, the safety net of our welfare state will once again catch you and every single one of your kids.
Since the day I came to this place and long before, I have argued for this change—I have argued that no child is responsible for the actions of their parents, that the happy event of a little one being born should not tip a family into poverty, and that whether a six-year-old eats tonight should not depend on how many sisters or brothers they have. This day has come because we have a Labour Government, and for that reason alone. I invite everyone sitting on the Opposition Benches who thinks they had something to do with this day to retract their comments and remember who those children have to thank.
Ending the two-child limit helps 5,540 children in Tipton, Wednesbury and Coseley. Whenever I go on a school visit in my area—where child poverty levels are at 50%, but not for long—I say to that assembly, to those children, “If you have more than two sisters or brothers, please raise your hand.” And I look and the teachers look at the forest of raised hands of children in larger families, and we know what that means. It means that in April, those families will open their universal credit journal or their banking app, and they will see an amount of money that is adequate to meet their family’s needs—not luxury, not extras, but adequate at last.
Some 1.6 million children nationally will be helped by the policy that we will pass tonight—one kid in every nine of our kids helped. Most of the families that will be helped—six in 10 of them—are in work. Loads of them—four in 10—have a disabled family member. Some of those families have kids so young that the parents cannot work. Not a single one of them deserves to live in poverty.
To the mums with three or more kids, using universal credit to top up low wages and high rents: this is for you. Know that far away in Westminster, a bunch of people you elected to stand up for hard-working, low-income families thought of you and your kids, and took out a gross, punitive law that kept you and your kids poor.
Dr Luke Evans
The hon. Lady talks about speaking for the public, but consistently, in all polling, 60% of Brits want to see this policy stay in place. What does she say to them?
Antonia Bance
I say to the people in my constituency and elsewhere who have raised questions with me about this policy that in order to will the ends, you have to will the means. Save the Children published this morning some polling showing that 78% of the country want to see child poverty cut. The fastest and most effective way to cut child poverty is to get rid of this punitive, gross policy that artificially inflates the number of children in poverty and creates an escalator to get more into poverty every day, with every child born.
To the Opposition parties, I would say this. I hear you say to these families, “Go out and get a job.” Most of them are already in work. Are you telling those five and six-year-olds—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. Not “you”—I have not spoken in this debate!
Antonia Bance
Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I say to those on the Opposition Benches who are telling people already in work to go out and get a job: what are those people supposed to do? Are they supposed to send their five-year-olds out on a paper round to make the money add up when it does not? Do not talk to me about how families should plan better—you will never meet a better planner than a single mum in Princes End making the money stretch. Do not cry crocodile tears for kids whose dad died but when his widow needed help, we said, “Nah. You shouldn’t have had so many kids.” Do not tell me that a dad who lost his job does not deserve help for his kids because he did not predict years in advance, when planning his family, that his factory would close and he would be dumped out of work. Be honest about what supporting the two-child limit means. If you support it, you think that some kids should be hungry tonight—well, we don’t.
I have no words for the idea of the charlatans of the Reform party, who would reimpose the two-child limit, plunge thousands of children into poverty and take hundreds of pounds from families each month in order to make it cheaper to have a pint. The hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin) was too frit to give way to me, so I will say this to her this now. Her policy would affect Sikh children living in my constituency who have a mum or dad born in the Punjab, or children in my constituency with a mum or dad who was born in Bangladesh, Poland or Pakistan. These are British people. They are our neighbours and our friends—people who work and play by the rules. They are British citizens, but they are second-class citizens for Reform.
I was glad to see that the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) called out Reform. I would like to see more calling out of that frankly disgusting point of view: the differentiation between different types of British citizen based on nationality and the colour of their skin that we see going on in our national political dialogue and in the Reform party. I hope that people across the country, in Scotland, in Wales and in my borough of Sandwell, will reject that division when the time comes in May—and that those in Gorton and Denton will do so as well.
I say this to my constituents who are working hard to make ends meet: I will not apologise for prioritising our kids. Every child deserves a fair start in life. As one of our greatest Prime Ministers said when launching his own child poverty mission:
“Poverty should not be a birthright. Being poor should not be a life sentence”.
We want every child to have the freedom to learn, to play sport, to sing, to dance and to get on in life, free from want and fear—the freedom to be kids. This is what a Labour Government will deliver: half a million of children out of poverty. I will be voting for the Bill tonight, and I hope other Members will too.
Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)
I will start by repeating something that the Secretary of State said at the start of the debate. He made much of the need to set against anger and division, so I am going to appeal to everyone’s better nature. Ultimately, the removal of the two-child limit was not in the Labour party’s manifesto, so until recently it was not something to which the Government had committed—in fact, it was ruled out by the Chancellor. I have sat through the entire debate and I have to say that it is a bit rich of Government Members to lecture us today, when in 2024 the limit was clearly good enough for the Labour party, including the current Prime Minister and the Chancellor. It is also worth pointing out that we keep hearing the figures 4.5 million and half a million. It seems that the removal of the two-child limit will reduce the 4.5 million people who the Government say are in poverty by just half a million. It will be interesting to hear the Minister comment on that.
The debate has been caricatured as being rich Conservatives versus everyone else, but nothing could be further from the truth. We believe in a safety net, but we also believe in personal responsibility. Many of us on the Opposition Benches grew up on benefits. I am one of those people, and I was in fact worse off when the Labour Government came into power in 1997; they scrapped the child benefit and replaced it with working tax credit, and my mum supported by dad’s business and did not go to work in her own right while she raised her four children. When I am asked why I am a Conservative, that is what I say—and I have checked that this afternoon to ensure that I am factually accurate. We are speaking up for those who work hard and have high bills, as well as housing and food costs, but who are paying tax because they do not qualify for universal credit.
I want to make one final point before I come to the body of my speech. Lots has been said about free school meals this afternoon, but when I recently questioned the Department for Education on whether it has any record of the number of councils making the most of the auto-enrolment for free school meals, I was told that the Government do not have the figure. They might wish to go away and look at that. I absolutely appreciate that auto-enrolment helps the most vulnerable, but if the Government are not taking account of the levers in their hands to improve that system, then they need to do some work.
Having done my bit of ad-libbing, I will make some progress with my speech. Fundamentally, maintaining the two-child limit is about fairness—fairness to working parents who do the right thing, fairness to working parents who make difficult choices and fairness for families who live within their means.
Rebecca Smith
No, I am going to make some progress.
We are talking about men and women who are working long hours in shops, schools, offices, construction sites and care homes right across the country. Why should families in receipt of universal credit have to avoid the difficult decisions about how many children they can afford, unlike those who are not in receipt of it?
Compassion is often framed in terms of supporting the most vulnerable, and rightly so—indeed, I have highlighted my own personal conviction on this in previous debates—but as one a colleague in my previous council career told me, “The left has no monopoly on compassion, Rebecca.”
Compassion cuts both ways. We must remember the millions of hard-working families across the UK who are not on large salaries yet fall outside any thresholds for universal credit—the families who earn the same for going to work as their neighbours do on universal credit. It is unfair to these parents to make them bear a double cost: raising their own children and subsidising other people’s.
Several hon. Members rose—
Rebecca Smith
No, I will not give way; I am going to make some progress.
These mums and dads are the backbone of our economy, and we cannot afford to let them down. Scrapping the cap reduces incentives for parents to look for a job or work longer hours. Why would they bother going to work, or working more, when they could get more in benefits? A strong economy must provide incentive structures that help people to do the right thing, and we tamper with these fundamental structures at our own peril.
Gareth Snell
On the point of doing the right thing, the data suggests that in the shadow Minister’s own constituency there are 1,160 children living in a household that does not currently receive universal credit support for the additional children. Some of them will be listening this evening, and some will be teenagers. What would she say to them? Would she tell them that she could do something this evening, but she is choosing not to? What is her justification to those children?
Rebecca Smith
I also speak for the 60% of the population who do not think we should be scrapping the cap. No doubt a large proportion of those people are also in my constituency.
As Conservatives, we believe in personal responsibility and living within our means. Our welfare system should be a safety net for the most vulnerable, not a lifestyle choice, as my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) has argued so powerfully. As I have alluded to, it seems that we are not alone; that principle of fairness is echoed across the country, with a recent YouGov poll finding that 57% of respondents believe that the cap should be retained.
The situation is particularly stark for self-employed mothers, who can only access statutory maternity allowance —a flat rate that falls far below what their peers can receive via their employer. I recently met one self-employed mother who told me that she is seriously weighing up whether to have a second child because she and her husband simply cannot afford it right now. This is a deeply personal dilemma, fraught with conflicting emotions. Equally, those not on benefits who have more children do not get paid more wages—they just have to absorb the extra costs within their budgets—so this idea that we need to give people more money because they have more children does not always make sense. However, this Government are determined to give families on universal credit a free pass; as a result, those families will not have to make those kinds of hard choices.
According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, for 70% of the poorest households currently subject to the two-child limit, any money they stand to gain from the scrapping of the limit will get partially or fully wiped out by the household benefit cap. How do the Government square that circle when they have been quoting the headline figures for poverty? As has been raised numerous times today by Opposition Members, if Labour truly followed its own logic on child poverty, it would also need to scrap the household benefit cap, at even greater cost to the taxpayer.
Conversely, 40% of those affected by the two-child limit will be exempt from the overall household benefit cap, because they have at least one claimant or child receiving health and disability benefits. This means that households with six children will get an additional £14,000 every single year. For larger families in particular, the financial gap between going to work and being out of work will shrink significantly. We are trapping good people in a bad system. Shockingly, one in four full-time workers would be better off on benefits than in work—that is 6 million workers across the UK whose neighbours on combined benefits are receiving more income than they are. It is no wonder that every day 5,000 people sign on to long-term sickness benefits. According to the Centre for Social Justice, a claimant who is receiving universal credit for ill health plus the average housing element and personal independence payment could receive the equivalent of a pre-tax salary of £30,100, and a family with three children receiving full benefits could get the equivalent of £71,000 pre-tax. How is this fairness?
At best, scrapping the cap is a sticking plaster that does not tackle the root causes of poverty. We know that work is the best route out of poverty—in fact, if this Government hit their ambitious target of increasing employment rates by 80%, that could lift approximately the same number of children out of poverty as scrapping the two-child limit. Instead, this Bill will be yet another strain on our ballooning benefits budget. If it had been retained, the two-child limit would have saved the taxpayer £2.4 billion in 2026-27, rising to £3.2 billion in 2030-31. Instead, the bill is being passed on to all those families I have spoken about already.
Rebecca Smith
No, because I believe the hon. Gentleman’s Minister will want to have a fair share of time as well.
When it comes to reforming welfare spending, the Prime Minister has shown extraordinary weakness of resolve. Scrapping the two-child cap is simply a political decision to placate his Back Benchers, costing taxpayers billions. It is unaffordable for a welfare system that is already on its knees, and damaging to the very work incentives his party promotes. Indeed, no one voted for it at the general election. As the Leader of the Opposition has said,
“28 million people in Britain are now working to pay the wages and benefits of 28 million others. The rider is as big as the horse.”
Let us look at this through the eyes of hard-working parents and individuals. Many of their businesses and workplaces are already being hit by Labour’s damaging tax rises. These are people with a work ethic—they willingly shoulder the burden of supporting their families without relying on the state—but their commitment to doing the right thing is being thrown back in their face. The Conservatives are the only party truly standing by hard-working families. We are the only party serious about bringing the welfare bill under control and protecting taxpayers from yet more unavoidable costs. Keeping the cap is about fairness, responsibility and respect for the sacrifices that parents make every single day. To scrap it flies in the face of that.
The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)
Like the shadow Minister, I will start by quoting my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. At the start of the debate, he said that this Government have chosen to reject the politics of division and of rage. Instead, we have chosen to seek to bring the country together and to open up a hopeful way forward. That is the choice that underpins this Bill.
It was my great privilege to take through this House the Child Poverty Act 2010, which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn). That Bill, as he pointed out, had all-party support. George Osborne spoke in favour of it. A few months later, George Osborne was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Government took the opposite stance. The four separate child poverty targets were scrapped. The headline rate of benefits was over time cut to the lowest real-terms level for 40 years. The Child Poverty Commission set up by the Act was replaced by the Social Mobility Commission, and child poverty eventually rocketed by 900,000 to 4.5 million. That is what Tory policies did. Their claim of wanting to tackle child poverty proved to be hollow, and we discovered the authentic voice of the Tory party, which we have heard again this afternoon.
We should not forget the contribution of the Tories’ coalition partners in the 2010 to 2015 Government. I warmly welcome the Lib Dem support that we have heard today. The hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) made a thoughtful speech on behalf of his party, and we also heard from the hon. Members for Ely and East Cambridgeshire (Charlotte Cane), for Stratford-on-Avon (Manuela Perteghella), for Eastleigh (Liz Jarvis) and for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray). Their party leader was in the Cabinet when much of the damage was done, and he did nothing to stop it when it came to the crunch. In the battle against child poverty, the Lib Dems were nowhere to be seen.
Sir Stephen Timms
I will not just at the moment. Poverty does immense harm, as we have heard, to children and their future prospects. In the classroom, children eligible for free school meals are on the wrong end of an education gap that reaches 19 months by age 16. They earn around 25% less at age 30. Recent research by Liverpool University has shown that children growing up below the poverty line are three times more likely to be not in education, employment or training as young adults. To tackle the NEET problem—as we must, with almost a million young people left NEET by the last Government—we have to tackle child poverty, too.
We have heard arguments in this debate that we are piling up costs for the future. Actually, it is the failures of the past that have piled up those costs, and we are now having to address that. The costs of child poverty play out throughout the lives of those affected. They play out in our social security system, in the NHS and in other public services, too. The Tories claim that by making those cuts, they were saving money. What they were doing, in fact, was heaping up massive costs of future failure, which we are all now having to pick up.
The Bill will deliver a better future for our children and for the country. Removing the two-child limit in universal credit will lift 450,000 children out of poverty by the end of this decade, and that figure rises to more than half a million children alongside other measures in our child poverty strategy. That is a generation less likely to struggle with their mental health, more likely to do well at school and more likely to be in work as young adults and to thrive in their future working lives. That is a generation with the capacity to thrive. That is the future we are choosing to build.
Siân Berry
The Government narrowed the scope of the last benefits Bill, and it could widen this Bill to take in the wider benefit cap, too. The Chancellor who could find the money for that is right next to the Minister. Can the Minister explain why, despite the interest in lifting the overall benefit cap in the Chamber today, according to the impact assessment the only options assessed were doing nothing or this very narrow measure?
Sir Stephen Timms
The change for which I think the hon. Lady is arguing would make a relatively modest alteration to the figures. There is a real advantage in the benefit cap, in terms of the incentive to work. We are not proposing to change that, and in the changes that we are making we are maintaining that incentive very robustly. This is a change from the choices of the last Government, which left us with a third of primary schools running food banks.
I echo the tribute paid by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson) to the work of the End Child Poverty Coalition. Members including my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (David Baines) rightly referred to the Child Poverty Action Group, and others mentioned the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. I pay tribute to all those who have campaigned, successfully, for the change that we are making.
The shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), said in her opening speech that her party did not accept the relative poverty definition. As we were reminded during the debate, her party embraced that definition in 2010—it was part of the change that was made at the time—but between 2010-11 and 2023-24, even absolute poverty rose. It was higher at the end of that period than it had been at the beginning. That was an extraordinary feature of her party’s record in government.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) for her contribution to the debate and for the work of her Work and Pensions Committee, alongside that of the Education Committee, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), in scrutinising our child poverty strategy. The points that she made were absolutely right.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) was, I think, the first to draw attention to the struggle that teachers are having in supporting children in classes. According to survey evidence, in 38% of schools staff are currently paying out of their own pockets to provide essentials for their pupils because their parents cannot afford to buy them. They have full-time roles tackling hardship, taking away funds that ought to be spent on education.
The hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) made a thoughtful speech, as he often does, but he was wrong. He said that the extra money would be for people because they were not working. It was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Douglas McAllister), my hon. Friend the Member for Corby and East Northamptonshire (Lee Barron)—in a spirited contribution—and my hon. Friends the Members for Ipswich (Jack Abbott), for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley), for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey), for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett), for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome), for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) and for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) that the great majority of the beneficiaries of this measure are people in work, and as a result the hon. Gentleman’s argument crumbled away.
Sir Stephen Timms
No, I will not be giving way.
It was very interesting to hear the arguments of the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin). Her party is looking more and more like a cut-price Boris Johnson reunion party, with all the old faces turning up on the Reform Benches. Now they are even starting to sing some of the old songs. The leader of their party has been talking for years about opposing the two-child limit, and just a few weeks ago, the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman) wrote an article in which she said that she opposed it. Today they are voting with the Tories in favour of the cap. Those old policies would cause the same damage if they were brought in again in the future.
I remember a time when there seemed to be at least some degree of consensus in the House on the importance of tackling child poverty. Well, there was not much sign of that among Conservative Members this afternoon, and I am sorry that we have lost it. Scrapping the two-child limit on universal credit is the single most effective lever that we can pull to reduce the number of children growing up poor, and in pulling that lever we are helping hundreds of thousands of children to live better lives now, and to have real grounds for hope for their futures. We are supporting their families, the majority of whom are working families, and by enabling the next generation to fulfil its potential we are investing in our country’s success in the years to come.
The Bill is the key to delivering the biggest fall in child poverty in any Parliament on record, and in doing so it will make a very big contribution to the missions of this Government. Our manifesto was summed up in one word—“change”—and this is what change looks like: ambition for families, and for the country.
Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The House proceeded to a Division.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Will the Serjeant at Arms investigate the delay in the Aye Lobby?