Welfare Spending

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Employment (Alison McGovern)]

Well, there we have it—as ever, all politics and no economics. The Conservatives come to this House to talk not about the people of this country, but about themselves. In March, we found out the truth of the Tory record on child poverty, which is highly relevant to their motion today. From 2010 to 2024, the number of poor children skyrocketed by nearly 1 million. After 14 years in office, the Conservatives left us with 4.5 million of our children growing up without the ability to make ends meet. That is what Tory Governments do, just as they did from 1979 to 1997, when child poverty more than doubled, leaving 4.2 million children in relative poverty. The Conservatives can come to this House to defend the failures of the last Government as many times as they like, as their motion does today. Every single time, we will remind them of their record.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Alison McGovern]

I will give way if the hon. Gentleman apologises to the 4.5 million children in this country growing up in poverty.

[Graham Stuart]

The Minister and Labour Members are in absolute denial about the state of the country. The Government came in with growth as their No. 1 mission, and what have they done? They have brought growth to an absolute, shuddering halt. They have done what every Labour Government do, which is to increase unemployment. Who does that hurt the most? It is the poorest. From an age point of view, who does that hurt the most? It is the young. An increase in youth unemployment of 45% was a scar on this country that the last Labour Government left. It was the Conservative Government that outgrew Germany, France, Japan and Italy over the 14 years we were in power. She should be ashamed of her record, even though it is only 12 months old.

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that lengthy intervention. I deeply regret that he does not feel the need to look his own record in the face and, more than anything, that he has nothing to say to the 4.5 million children in this country without the means to make ends meet.

Emergency food parcels distributed by Trussell Trust food banks have increased by 164% over the past 10 years, and 1.1 million children are living in households that have gone to a food bank over the past 12 months. In this country we now have more food banks than police stations. Are the Conservatives proud of that record? I hope not.

Nobody in this country should be begging—no child should face that indignity. The consequences are serious. Over 80% of parents say they struggle to get basic support, such as a GP appointment, or to see a health visitor. Schools are in an attendance crisis, with one in five kids now missing a day a fortnight or more, and it is worse for poor kids. That is the Conservatives’ record. These failures for our children will echo down the years and will turn up in our nation’s life expectancy, the benefits bill they say they care about and, worst of all, in the sense of hopelessness that far too many people in this country now have.

Do the Conservative Opposition have a response on their record? As we have heard, no, they do not. Have they apologised to families in the UK? As we have heard, no, they have not. Have they reflected on their record? As we have heard, no, they have not. They bring a motion to this House to do none of the above, but to agree with the Tory party policy from 10 years ago. They are the same Conservative party that created the mess we are in now, and they have no regrets. Their motion talks of a benefits trap, and the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) just repeated that. They will be awfully cross when they find out who spent £3 billion on the universal credit system that they now say traps people in poverty. They promised that universal credit would get people into work; instead, it pushed people into incapacity benefits.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gill German (Clwyd North) (Lab)]

Tackling the causes of child poverty is the reason I came into this place. As a teacher and then cabinet member for education, I know only too well about the child poverty that has grown for over a decade—I could see it happening before my eyes. In Wales, much has already been put in place to mitigate the impact, including in my own work: long-established free breakfast clubs, work to lower the cost of the school day and universal free school meals in every primary school.

There is also the incredible work that my local schools do, with family support spaces, banks of winter coats and food banks—yes, food banks—in schools, to make sure that children go home to a proper meal. The necessity of these in 21st-century Britain is a stain on our country, so when I hear Conservative Members talk about benefits culture, blaming people for their financial struggles and telling them to live within their means, I am frankly staggered, because it is their inaction and shoulder-shrugging that has led us to where we are today.

[Graham Stuart]

Does the hon. Lady recognise that there were 800,000 fewer people—including 300,000 children—in absolute poverty and 4 million more people in work in the UK when the Conservatives left power in 2024 than there were in 2010? Labour Governments take us in the opposite direction: they put people in the dole queue and make the whole country poorer. That is why the Conservative party can be proud of its role in poverty reduction, including for children.

[Gill German]

I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention, but to be frank, I do not recognise any of it. The Tories sat on their hands and allowed low-paid work to grow, access to work to dwindle, welfare dependency to deepen and daily living costs to soar.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Mullan]

Not right now.

I recognise, of course, that some people are not able to make the same choice about the number of children in their family—including, for example, children who are cared for under kinship arrangements, or adopted; there are many exceptions to the policy to make it fair. The welfare system is already growing unsustainably, with spending on health and disability benefits alone set to hit £100 billion by the end of the decade, yet Labour, Reform and the Liberal Democrats all back higher welfare spending, including scrapping the two-child limit, which will keep taxes high. The Resolution Foundation estimates that scrapping the two-child benefit limit will cost £3.5 billion a year by 2029-30. Is this really an appropriate time to put more pressure on the public finances?

[Graham Stuart]

The focus of the motion today is the two-child benefit limit, yet we heard not a single word from the Minister about it. That shows just how listless and drifting the Government are, when those on the Front Bench cannot tell the truth to this House or to those on the Back Benches. The truth is that the Labour party is riven in two, and those on the Front Bench no longer have any power of propulsion.

[Dr Mullan]

As others have pointed out, the Government put forward welfare reforms that were supposed to save money but ended up costing money, and this is yet another attempt to placate their Back Benchers in a way that we cannot afford. We must be clear about our record: we brought down absolute child poverty when we were in government. Labour Members are happy to quote figures on relative poverty and take them at face value, but when we quote figures on absolute poverty from the same datasets, they do not want to hear it. I am clear that I care more about absolute poverty, and how much someone actually has to spend on things that they need, than I do about relative poverty.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Andrew Western)]

Before I turn to some of the rawer politics as the debate demands, I thank all hon. Members who have taken part in this important debate. Like other hon. Members, I am appalled by the level of child poverty in this country. Running through the debate was an underlying and understandable anger at the unacceptable increase in child poverty since 2010, with 1.1 million children using food banks to eat.

[Graham Stuart]

I am sure that the Minister wants to give a fair and balanced overview, and we all wish to see fewer people in relative poverty, notwithstanding his support last week for a measure that would have put it up by a quarter of a million. Just to have balance on the record, does he recognise that, in absolute terms, between 2010 and 2024 the number of children in poverty dropped by 300,000, and the number of people in poverty overall by 800,000?

[Andrew Western]

I absolutely accept that the Conservative party, because of its shameful record, made a fundamental change to the way in which poverty is assessed. We have returned to the internationally recognised comparator that exposes that shameful record. We will not run away from that internationally recognised comparator. It is on that on which we will be judged, and the Conservatives must also be judged on that.

I thank Labour Members who spoke in the debate so passionately about the work that the Government have already done on child poverty and the Conservative party’s shameful record. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Clwyd North (Gill German), for Reading Central (Matt Rodda), for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan), for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy) and for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance)—and, yes, my hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman). He and I may not agree on the process being followed by the Government to tackle child poverty wherever we see it, but I do not doubt his commitment and support to tackling it.

I thank in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) for his powerful personal testimony about his upbringing, and about the stigma of poverty and the shame that many parents feel when they require extra support. Like him, I grew up in modest circumstances, as one of five children. For a period, in a single-parent household, we were dependent on tax credits, child tax credits and the education maintenance allowance—remember that? I will not allow privately educated Conservative spokespeople to lecture us on the plight of struggling families up and down the country when they have shown no care at all about the part they played in putting many of those families into crisis.

[Graham Stuart]

That is so low.

[Andrew Western]

What is low is scrapping the Child Poverty Act in 2016. The Conservatives’ record on child poverty is cheap and low. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) can continue to chunter from a sedentary position; I could reel off their record all day.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Western]

I am afraid I will not take any further interventions, as I only have a couple of minutes left. The hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) tempted me to speculate about decisions around taxation. He will appreciate that that is way above my pay grade, and I hope that he is patient enough to wait for the next fiscal event to get an answer to his question.

[Graham Stuart]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Given collective responsibility, is it in order for a Minister of the Crown to argue against a policy of his own Government? If I have understood correctly, it is the policy of the Government and the Labour party to maintain the two-child benefit cap.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. The right hon. Gentleman will know that that is not a matter for the Chair, and he is seeking to drag me into the debate.