Child Poverty Strategy

Debate between Afzal Khan and Bridget Phillipson

Monday 8th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend. I know he has done an incredible amount to champion the life chances of children in his community, which covers many towns and villages and a big rural population. That presents some unique challenges, and perhaps we could discuss that further and how we can ensure that more of his constituents benefit from family support services. The lifting of the two-child limit will make a huge difference, alongside the wider measures on childcare.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester Rusholme) (Lab)]

Following 14 years of Tory austerity, harsh cuts to public services and a cost of living crisis, more than half of all children in my Manchester Rusholme constituency are living in poverty. My right hon. Friend has shown excellent leadership through this strategy, but given the dire condition in which the Tories left the country, may I encourage her to look at measures to prevent the causes of poverty and to go further, so that we can end child poverty for good?

[Bridget Phillipson]

Yes. Like my hon. Friend, I am always ambitious to do more to lift more children out of poverty and to create better conditions to tackle the root causes of poverty. This ambitious strategy is an incredibly strong start that will see the biggest reduction in child poverty numbers in any Parliament since records began. That shows the scale of our ambition, and this 10-year strategy will ensure that fewer children suffer the injustice and the deep moral scar of growing up in poverty, but there is, of course, always more to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Afzal Khan and Bridget Phillipson

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

I agree that it is important we get the balance right. That is why the Deputy Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Business and Trade are looking carefully, as part of our wider reforms to employment support and employment law, at what more we need to do around parental leave entitlements. I share the hon. Member’s concern about the comments we have heard from the now leader of the Conservative party, the right hon. Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), about maternity pay. I want to make sure that parents have choices about what works for them, what is best for them and what best supports their children’s development in those crucial early years.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester Rusholme) (Lab)]

2. What steps she is taking to provide preventive education for schoolchildren about knife crime.