Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Pat McFadden]

Timing matters, and if the right hon. Gentleman shows a little patience, I will tell him exactly why we have done this in the timeframe that we have.

All the policy did was force more children into poverty, alongside the Conservatives’ other key welfare measure of trapping the sick out of work. Even some voices on the right recognise the damage that this policy did. Former Tory Welfare Minister Lord Freud described it as “vicious” and said it had been forced on the Department for Work and Pensions by the Treasury at the time, and the former Conservative Home Secretary and new recruit for Reform, the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman), has said,

“Let’s abolish the two-child limit, eradicate child poverty for good”.

I do not know whether that is still her position—we will find out at tonight’s vote—but it seems that the party she has now joined wants to restore the two-child limit. Reform is importing not just failed Tory politicians, but failed Tory policies.

Between 2010, when the Conservatives came into office, and the summer of 2024 when they left it, the number of children in poverty had risen by some 900,000. That is something to ponder as Members on the Opposition Benches have their debate about whether or not Britain is broken. If it is, who was responsible? Who designed the welfare system that they tell us on a daily basis is broken? They did. Who broke the prisons system that we have had to rescue? They did. Who shook international confidence in our economy and its key institutions? They did. This is the inescapable problem with the Conservatives’ current position: an attack line that says, “We trashed the country and left you with a terrible inheritance,” might just not be the winning argument they think it is. Let them have their debate about whether Britain is broken while we get on with the task of fixing what they left behind.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

As my right hon. Friend has described, this is a crucial policy, but it is a downpayment on tackling other failures of the former Government, including the poor-quality and overcrowded housing that puts too many children in poverty of situation. Is he proud, as I am, that we now have a Labour Government who are tackling these issues and getting our children where they should be?

[Pat McFadden]

My hon. Friend is right, and the point she makes is that we also tackle these issues piece by piece and over time.

I turn now to the question that people have asked: “Why not do this right away?” Here is the difference between government and opposition. The truth is that in opposition, it is easy to tally up everything that is wrong with the country and promise to reverse it, but a winning manifesto has to be more than a list of what is wrong.

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[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

Every week, millions of people up and down the country sit at their kitchen table and do the sums to work out what is coming in, what is going out, and what simply is not affordable. Sometimes the conversation may take a more serious turn to one of life’s biggest decisions: “Shall we start a family?” or “Can we afford another child?” Though romantics might love that to be a decision about whether people want the joy of bringing new life into this world, the reality is that many ask themselves, “Can we afford it?” They are not looking to someone else to help them make ends meet or pick up the bill; they are just doing the maths. That is a difficult conversation, but Members have to ask themselves a simple question before we vote: why should people on benefits get to avoid the hard choices faced by everyone else?

Let us be clear about what the two-child cap is and what it is not. The two-child cap restricts the additional universal credit a household can get to the amount for two children, with carefully considered exceptions, such as twins or non-consensual conception. It does not apply to child benefit. It says that there is a limit, and a point at which it is simply not fair to make taxpayers fund choices that they themselves cannot afford to make.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

What does the shadow Secretary of State have to say to my constituent, who found herself single with three children in temporary accommodation and then moved into a one-bedroom flat? In those overcrowded conditions, her youngest got ill, and she had to give up her good job to look after that child. This Bill is a lifeline for her. She wants to go back to work, but it is difficult. She did not choose to be in that situation—it was not a choice. And, for the record, most of my constituents do not have space for a kitchen table.

[Helen Whately]

I am sure that all of us in this House care about poverty and children’s prospects, but the answer is not to spend more, to hand out more money and to trap people in worklessness; the answer is to support people to work, and that is exactly the opposite of what the hon. Lady’s Government are doing.

We all know that bringing up children is expensive and important, but when working couples are having to make tough decisions about whether they can afford to start a family at all, they should not be asked to pay higher taxes to fund someone else to have a third, fourth or fifth child. Someone who is in work does not get a pay rise because they have another child. If we are serious about avoiding a benefits trap, whereby it pays more to be on welfare than in work, we should be honest about what happens if we lift the two-child cap. Benefits for individual households will rise by thousands. Nearly half a million households will receive around £5,000 more on average. A single parent on universal credit with five children could get an extra £10,000 without doing any work, taking their household income to more than £45,000, untaxed—people have to earn about £60,000 to get that income from work! Around 75,000 households will get between £10,000 and £21,000 extra as a result of this Bill. For some households, the extra money will be more than a full-time income, after tax, for someone on the minimum wage.

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[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a society that is free, open and fair, and a society in which no one is enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity. That is why it is in our DNA to be against the two-child limit. There are 4.5 million children living in poverty in the UK. As somebody with a passion for the future of our children—looked-after children, adopted children and so forth—I know they are the responsibility of us all, and we should have a passion for supporting our youngsters, because children are 20% of our population, but 100% of our future.

We must reflect on the fact that this Dickensian policy of judging families was brought in by the Conservatives. It is judging because, as we have heard, a parent may find themselves in a position beyond their control—when a family member or the other parent is suddenly taken ill or, even worse, dies—and they are left alone to provide for their youngsters in really difficult circumstances. Equally, why should we decide as a society that, because they are the third or fourth child, we value them less? Such a belief seems morally bankrupt. It is so important that we value our children because they are our future. It is also very sad that seven Labour Members had the Whip suspended for doing the right thing and backing the end of the two-child limit.

I want to reflect a little more on what this means in Torbay. I represent one of the most deprived constituencies in the south-west of England. When I visited a school in Paignton, the headteacher told me how children turn up cold, tired and hungry. It has to provide warm clothes for the youngsters, because parents cannot afford them. It has to provide food for the youngsters. The headteacher was taking on the incredible altruism of being a foster carer, so that if a child did need support, she would have the qualifications to step in and support the family in need.

Jennie and I love going to schools, Jennie in particular—the kids enjoy Jennie more than me, I am sure. Having a chat with youngsters about what they like and do not like about living in their town is a special thing to do, whether as a councillor or a Member of Parliament. Usually, one hears about litter, the environment, graffiti, older kids swearing and so on. In Torquay, in Barton Hill academy, what I found really disturbing was how the nine and 10-year-olds were talking about the cost of living crisis. They were worried about mum, who could not quite afford to put enough petrol in the car, and utility bills were worrying their parents. They told me they were not doing so many of the nice things they used to do a couple of years ago, because mum and dad said they could not afford it any more.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. It was, of course, his party, in coalition, that delivered austerity and delivered this policy. Does he have anything to say to the British public about that period of his party’s history?

[Steve Darling]

I thank the hon. Member for her non-partisan intervention. The Liberal Democrats opposed the two-child limit. We are on the record as doing that and I am delighted we did so. A Joseph Rowntree Foundation report published last week highlights how tackling poverty has flatlined since 2005, so the Liberal Democrats welcome this step forward in ending the two-child limit.

This measure is not just about children; it is about the future of our country and investing in people and believing in them. The Secretary of State alluded to the fact that youngsters have worse education outcomes, higher levels of mental health challenges later in life, and are unable to contribute to society as strongly as they could. The taxman takes less from them later in life, because their jobs are not so profitable.

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[Dame Meg Hillier]

My hon. Friend rightly highlights that this is partly about the wider structure, and it is also about the number of parents who are in work. Does she not agree that part of our strategy on child poverty is also about supporting parents into better-paid work, so they can continue to support their families and their children?

[Janet Daby]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct; it is about supporting parents into better-paid work.

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[Dr Shastri-Hurst]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, but this is about choices. We come to this place to make choices about how we spend taxpayers’ money to ensure that it is fair across the board. We can all bring moving individual stories, but there is the reality of how we support Government expenditure across the board so that it is fair and equitable and ensures that families up and down the country are having to make similar choices every single day.

What this Bill tells the country is that choices no longer matter. It tells the taxpayer that restraint is optional. It tells Government that limits are now outdated. The Government say that the Bill will reduce child poverty—I understand that, and I respect that intention—but poverty is not conquered by cheque books alone. It is conquered by work, education, stability and ambition. It is conquered when families are supported to stand tall instead of being encouraged to lean forever.

For far too long, politics has fallen into the trap of believing that every social problem has a fiscal solution—if only we spend more money, subsidise a little more or borrow more—but history teaches us a much harder lesson. A society that confuses help with dependency does not liberate the poor, but simply imprisons them.

The Bill will cost approximately £3 billion a year, which will be paid not by abstractions, but by people—by the nurse working a night shift, the self-employed plumber, the shop worker who is saving for a deposit or the small business owner who is keeping three other people in employment. Those people are entitled to ask whether this is fair. Is it fair that they have to calculate every single pound while the state abandons calculation altogether? I simply do not believe it is.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions made clear in his speech the number of people who make these choices and decisions and then, later on, find themselves on universal credit through changes in circumstances. This is a safety net. It is not the position of Labour or the Government that people with children should not work and should not be supported into work; that is very much part of the equation. Will the hon. Gentleman reflect on that and think about what happens when people’s circumstances change? This is a safety net—a leg up—not a handout.

[Dr Shastri-Hurst]

It would be a safety net if it provided a short-term boost. What it does instead is provide an endless cheque book without any checks and balances in place. If there was a sunset clause, that would be different, but there is not.

The two-child limit was about more than blame; it was about balance. It recognised that a welfare system without boundaries eventually loses legitimacy altogether, and when legitimacy is lost, discourse soon follows. That is the great unspoken risk of this Bill: it does not merely expand spending, but weakens trust; it widens the gap between those who give and those who receive and, in doing so, puts the whole settlement at risk.

What is fundamentally missing from this Bill is any serious strategy for mobility. Where are the plans for skills, for progression, for family stability and for moving people from welfare into work? Instead, the Bill simply offers the politics of reassurance without reform, comfort without challenge, spending without strategy and debt without direction.

The Conservatives recognise the importance of lifting people up, of not holding them down and of providing opportunity and not permanent subsidy. The true measure of social justice is not how many people we support, but, crucially, how many people we no longer need to support. The question before us, therefore, is whether we will tackle poverty at its root or merely manage it year after year; whether we will build a system that strengthens families or one that substitutes for them; and whether we will choose the easy road or the responsible one. This Bill chooses the easy road—it chooses sentiment over structure, expansion over reform and today over tomorrow. I simply cannot support that choice.

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[Dr Evans]

That is exactly right. The public will stand for a generous safety net, but they will not stand for people not trying to take things forward. I worry that, despite this Government’s talk of employment rights, the chances for employment and the working poor, more people are out of work under this very Government due to the choices they are making. That is fundamental to today’s debate, and trying to leverage morality into it misses the reality of responsibility. Every family in this country make fiscal choices and expect to behave responsibly, and so should the Government who lead them. That is the crux of the matter.

In the time I have left, I will move on to the context. If this were a moral crusade, as we have heard the Prime Minister say, he would have done it in his very first Budget; he would have made that choice. However, as we have heard from other Members, when this policy was put forward after the new Government came in, 40-odd MPs did not vote and seven Labour Members had the Whip removed.

If we are talking about poverty, one thing that has not been raised in the debate so far is the winter fuel payments policy. The Government’s own analysis said that it would put 50,000 pensioners into absolute poverty and 100,000 into relative poverty. So there is a dichotomy here, and it is about choices. Government Members seem to say that if we are going to solve poverty, we need to focus on one area, yet they all voted to take the fuel payments away—[Interruption.] I hear chuntering from the other side about means-testing, but that did not happen until later when there was a climbdown.

The key thing is that these are difficult choices that have to be made. I worry that the public see straight through what is going on. They need fairness in the system. They do not need a vote to be held to try to placate the Back Benchers of a failing Prime Minister. If this truly was the mission of the Prime Minister at the start, he would have done it straightaway.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

Let us be clear: this Government came in with a plan to tackle child poverty, but quite rightly set up a taskforce to deal with it under two excellent Secretaries of State, and now with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security and Disability at the helm as well. That is why this policy has happened now and did not happen immediately. It would have been a bad mistake to have dealt with this in a piecemeal fashion. Instead, we now have a whole strategy, of which this is a part, as is helping parents into work.

[Dr Evans]

Why, in that case, was the Whip removed from Labour Members? Why is there no contingency in the Bill to ensure that someone is progressing through the system? We have heard time and again from Members on both sides of the House that it is not only a safety net but a springboard. I come back to my point that if the Government want to make a difference, they could change the rating on universal credit to encourage more people into work, but that is not happening. That would help to support people who are in work but who are impoverished. The last Government brought in the household support fund to ensure that there was immediate support. I am pleased that the Government are bringing forward some form of contingency, but we still have not seen what that looks like. That will be a concern for people.

I shall end where I began. This system has to be fair to those who are getting the support, but also to those who are paying for it. At the end of the day, a family lives within its constraints and so should a country. This Bill does nothing but the opposite, and that is my concern.