Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

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

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, it is common for noble Lords to start their speeches by saying that it is a pleasure to follow either a noble Lord or a noble Baroness, and that is generally true. There are certain circumstances when it is not true. A number of speakers in this House are just so impressive, often speaking without any notes, that it is a very daunting prospect to follow them—and the noble Lord, Lord Bird, is undoubtedly one of them.

I pay tribute to my new noble friends Lady Antrobus and Lord Walker and the noble Baroness, Lady Teather, all of whom made speeches of quality, with a passion and fluidity that show that they will make major contributions to your Lordships’ House in the months and years to come.

Turning to the Bill, I am very pleased that we have got to where we are today on the removal of the two-child limit, but I cannot disguise my regret that it took so long. Be that as it may, as of next month, the two-child limit will no longer apply. In a typically powerful opening speech, my noble friend the Minister highlighted how many children will be taken out of poverty by the final year of this parliamentary term. Add in the introduction of breakfast clubs and the extension of free school meals, and that figure will rise beyond half a million. Even more impressive is that all that is before the Government’s child poverty strategy properly gets under way—a 10-year plan aimed at delivering a lasting reduction in child poverty by tackling its structural causes.

The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, spoke about the value of work, but during her party’s time in government, it completely failed to ensure that parents in work could keep up with the cost of living. In the Tories’ last year in office, 3.2 million children in working families were in poverty—up from 2.1 million when they came to power in 2010. More than any other policy, the two-child limit introduced in 2016 was responsible for driving child poverty to its current record high. To be honest, we should not be too surprised, because one of the last acts of the Labour Government who demitted office in 2010 was the Child Poverty Act, part of which was to establish a child poverty commission to tackle structural issues around child poverty. It took the incoming Tory and Lib Dem Government two years to introduce it, but they called it the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission. As the noble Lord, Lord Bird said, social mobility is of course very important, but the focus was meant to be on child poverty, and it had that name. Four years later, “Child Poverty” was dropped and it became the Social Mobility Commission. I think that reflected the fact that child poverty simply was not a priority for that Government and subsequent Tory Governments.

More than 60 children’s charities and other campaigning groups have welcomed the Bill. Tellingly, only right-wing organisations such as the Institute for Public Policy Research, the Centre for Social Justice and the self-styled TaxPayers’ Alliance—I am a taxpayer, but it certainly does not speak for me—have questioned the repeal of the two-child limit. Often, arguments in favour of retaining the two-child limit are couched in language such as a “benefits bonanza” or “welfare junkies”, appallingly pejorative terms that demean many people who are in receipt of state support while in employment, doing jobs where their pay is so low or unpredictable that they need extra help just to survive.

I say to my noble friend the Minister, with whom I worked on the shadow education team and for whom I have huge respect, how much I welcomed her use of the term “social security” in her speech. Can we please ditch the terms “welfare” and “benefits” and put “social security”, the description that we used to use, in their place? That is exactly what state support for families living with poverty is. Why should we not use the proper term? We can find a term that is not demeaning or in any way pejorative to people in need of help.

At Second Reading in another place, the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions questioned the affordability of the repeal of this legislation, something that has been repeated today. I would flip that coin and ask: what about the affordability of not ending the limit, which my noble friend Lady Lister called preventive spending? Can the cost of lower educational attainment, poorer mental health and a much higher likelihood of being NEET ever be tolerated? Shamefully, I have to say that during the 14 years of Tory and the Tory-Lib Dem Governments, it too often was. We can say that it will not be tolerated any longer, because this Government are developing the child poverty strategy to which I referred earlier. That will result in children receiving the social security and social solidarity that they deserve and having better health and education outcomes, enabling more of them to build careers that will provide stable lives for families of their own. That will be the hugely beneficial outcome of this Bill, which is in itself hugely welcome.