Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Murray Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Michelle Welsh (Sherwood Forest) (Lab)]

1. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help remove children from poverty.

[Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)]

4. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help remove children from poverty.

[The Minister for Women and Equalities (Bridget Phillipson)]

The Government are taking decisive action to tackle child poverty, for instance by removing the two-child limit, expanding free school meals and rolling out Best Start family hubs. Measures in the child poverty strategy are expected to lift more than half a million children out of poverty in 2029-30. That is what Labour Governments do: they make the choices that lift children out of poverty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Murray]

Child poverty haunts Edinburgh. In Scotland’s capital there are more homeless children than there are in the whole of Wales, which is a shameful legacy of 20 years of Scottish National party rule. Worryingly, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation warned last month that we are set to miss our child poverty targets by a significant margin; one in five Scottish children are still in poverty. What conversations has the Minister had with Scottish Ministers about tackling child poverty, and will she press them to use some of the extra £18 billion that this Government have given the Scottish Government for Scotland’s poorest children?

[Bridget Phillipson]

Again, I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. Tackling child poverty is not just a moral imperative; it is an investment in our country’s future and our children’s future. The fact that so many children in my hon. Friend’s community grow up in poverty is a scar on their life chances and a scar on all of us, but this Labour Government are taking decisive action in lifting the two child-limit, which will benefit an estimated 94,000 children in Scotland. In England, we are also expanding Government-funded childcare for children under two, and I am sure that many Scottish families hope the SNP Government will do the same.