Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

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

[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.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.