Two-child Benefit Cap and Child Poverty

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Kim Johnson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. The cap has done immeasurable damage to so many families in this country, impacting poverty and driving more families into poverty and not, as this Government anticipated, into work.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this really important debate. According to the End Child Poverty coalition, more than 2,700 children were living in poverty in my constituency of Wirral West in 2021-22—that is more than 18% of the children. As my hon. Friend has touched on, we know that poverty has an impact on children’s educational attainment, happiness and life chances. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is a scandalous state of affairs, it makes absolutely no sense for us to leave this problem unattended and we must end the two-child limit as a matter of urgency?

[Kim Johnson]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. We need to end this horrendous two-child policy and ensure all children have the opportunity to thrive and grow and not live in poverty.

Last September, when I hosted an event in Parliament in partnership with the End Child Poverty coalition and the National Education Union calling for universal free school meals to help alleviate child poverty and close inequalities in education and health, we heard from some incredible youth ambassadors. They told us of the stigma of being singled out for free school meals. One said the impact was like sitting in a classroom wearing a badge on their back saying they were poor. Another told us she remembered her mother skipping meals to make sure she and her siblings had something to eat and that now, years later, her own relationship with food and the guilt she associated with eating is still having an impact on her. Members in all parts of the House will be painfully aware of so many similar personal stories from the constituents they work with every day.

Last year the Joseph Rowntree Foundation annual report on UK poverty showed that child poverty in families with more than two children increased from 33% to 47% between 2012-13 and 2019-20, reaching levels not seen since before 1997. In my constituency, 11 children in a class of 30 are living in poverty, and of the 1,400 children in households in receipt of universal credit, 444 are not eligible for extra support due to having two or more siblings born after 6 April 2017.