Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

Debate between John Slinger and Jeevun Sandher

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

[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?