Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

Debate between Luke Evans and Jack Abbott

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

[Jack Abbott (Ipswich) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is true to say that the Conservative party has been right about one thing today: this is about choices, and I am incredibly proud to be making the one that we are making.

The Conservative party did untold damage to our country, whether it was in hollowing out the criminal justice system, crumbling school buildings and hospitals, record NHS waiting lists or Liz Truss, but the most egregious part of its record was the harm it inflicted on our nation’s children. An entire generation was plunged into poverty.

Poverty is not inevitable. The last Labour Government lifted 600,000 children out of poverty, but the Conservatives’ scorched-earth programme of austerity reversed that trend. Over their 14 years in power, the number of those in child poverty rose by 900,000, and 4.5 million children now live in poverty. In my constituency, thousands of children are growing up in poverty, which is around one in three. Those are not simply abstract statistics; they are the children and families I meet every week.

The shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), said that families have difficult conversations around the kitchen table, and she is absolutely right. Parents are worried about whether they will be turning the heating on or skipping a meal; kids already feel the weight of the world on their shoulders before their 10th birthday; and—as was mentioned just a moment ago—parents working two jobs are still unable to make ends meet. It is cold bedrooms, missed meals and two small, patched-together school uniforms—these are scars that last a lifetime.

Much of that hardship and suffering can be directly attributed to the two-child benefit limit. It is a failed, cruel policy experiment and—leaving aside the fact-free nonsense that we have heard previously from the Conservative party—it makes no difference to family sizes, and it does not drive up employment. Indeed, as has already been mentioned, almost 60% of affected families are in work. The two-child limit does not achieve the so-called goals that Tory ideologues pretend to lay out. Instead, it punishes children; all it does is make children poorer, and it is the single biggest driver of child poverty. Perhaps that is why there are so few Opposition Members prepared to sit and defend this morally, socially and economically bankrupt policy.

[Dr Evans]

There are not many on the Opposition Benches—the hon. Gentleman’s party won the last election—but we know that the public support keeping this cap in place. Any poll conducted in the last few years has suggested that, on average, 60% of people think that the cap should remain. Why does the hon. Gentleman think the British public back the cap staying in place?