Budget Resolutions

Debate between Ed Miliband and Wendy Morton

Monday 1st December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ed Miliband]

The hon. Gentleman says from a sedentary position that that is absurd, but it is not. The Conservatives believe in punishing children—

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Ed Miliband]

I will give way in a moment—let me make my point.

The Conservatives believe in punishing children for having another brother or sister. Children with only one sibling—two children in total—get the full amount, but if they have two siblings, they do not. How is that fair? How is that right? As the Chancellor said very powerfully in her Budget speech, is that good for our economy and our society? Of course it is not.

[Wendy Morton]

If the policy is so good, how will the Secretary of State explain to working people that they will be £18,000 worse off than those on benefits? How can that be fair?

[Ed Miliband]

This is all about working people, as I tried to explain earlier in my speech. Sixty per cent of people—[Interruption.] Please listen for a second. Sixty per cent of families who will benefit from the measure are in work. If the right hon. Lady wants to ask about the Chancellor’s wider Budget strategy, let me say that I absolutely fully support it, because it was a fair Budget. Yes, it did raise taxes on those with expensive homes—a policy that I advocated for 10 years ago, as a matter of interest—as well as on gambling companies and on landlords. [Interruption.] Members should read the Red Book. The measure is part of a fair Budget. By the way, the Conservatives will have to explain to people up and down the country why they want to leave hundreds of thousands of children in poverty. That is not fair or right, and it is bad for our country.