Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

Debate between Helen Whately and Stuart Anderson

2nd reading & Money resolution
Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[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.