Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading
Thursday 12th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, for introducing this Bill. Her passion for this policy is evident and I am sure that she is very glad finally to bring it to us 615 days after the current Government took power. The Green Party called for the end of the two-child benefit cap during the 2024 election and has continued to do so subsequently.

As the noble Baroness said, this policy was introduced by the Cameron-Osborne Conservative Government in 2017, deliberately choosing to put children into poverty—children who had done nothing to deserve that situation. It was a cruel policy and it is very good news that it is finally going. I offer congratulations to the many campaigners who have worked for this day, including Labour Back-Benchers in the other place. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who, I have no doubt, has been working very hard on this and rightly identified where the Government urgently need to go further, which is where I will particularly focus.

This is a missed opportunity, as it fails to act on the household benefit cap. According to Z2K, the charity that aims to fight poverty, at least 150,000 children in larger families will see no benefit at all because they are subject to that separate benefit cap. The household benefit cap means that many larger families will be trapped in deep poverty. In a case study cited by Z2K, Maryam is a lone parent of three who fled domestic abuse and now relies on universal credit. She has been affected by the two-child benefit limit and the benefit cap and is left with just £25 a week for the family to live on after rent. Even with today’s Bill, her income will not increase at all. If the benefit cap was lifted alongside it, it would allow her to meet her basic living costs and escape severe destitution.

There are also the families affected by disability. The Government’s child poverty strategy highlights that children living in families where a household member is disabled are at particularly high risk of both poverty and deep material poverty. Yet, under the changes in the universal credit legislation, financial support for seriously ill and disabled people under universal credit will be reduced by £215 a month. For a disabled family with three children affected by this, that universal credit change will wipe out 62% of the benefits from the two-child limit abolition. Policy in Practice, which did some very valuable work, found that one in 10 households currently held back by the two-child limit will not gain at all when the policy is reversed and one in 10 families will see only part of their potential gain as they become benefit-capped through the policy.

I am citing those figures, and I am sure others will come up with other figures, because there are no official figures on this. In fact, I asked the Minister in a Written Question in December for the Government’s figures on how many families who would have had money from the end of the two-child benefit cap would be hit by the household benefit cap. The Answer that I got on 5 January was:

“The requested information is internal analysis that is being quality assured to official statistics level. Plans to publish this in due course are ongoing”.


I wonder whether the noble Baroness can tell me how that is going.

Looking at the overall situation, the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that, without further policy action, child poverty rates will have crept back close to the 2024-25 level by the end of the forecast period in 2029-30, leaving a change of just 0.4% in those poverty levels. Another thing aside from the overall benefit cap is the local housing allowance, which is currently wildly inadequate.

I have two final brief points. I welcome the three maiden speakers today and look forward to those from whom we have not yet heard. They are obviously interested in child poverty but I urge them to think about branching out, as they find their feet in this House, into other areas that impact it. I spoke yesterday in the Moses Room about financial regulation. That is crucial to child poverty and a threat to the security of us all. Please think about engaging; do not just leave it to the banking insiders but pick up issues such as that as well.

Finally, to respond directly to the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, I am slightly surprised that, as the Conservatives are very into history, their leader has not really looked into the history books on the Boer War. British society and this place became very concerned that poverty, poor diet and poor housing meant that young men were not fit to fight for Britain, because of child poverty. If you are going to recruit 20,000 more soldiers, how will you do it from a society blighted by child poverty?