Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

John Slinger Excerpts

2nd reading & Money resolution
Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lizzi Collinge]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. Parents, in my experience, will do anything to protect their children from the harsh realities of life. It is parents who go without food. It is parents who have to go to the food bank. I remember the first time I met the people running the food bank in Morecambe, in 2017. I walked up to them and said, “One day, I will put you out of business.” And they said, “Thank you”, because their strategic aim is not to exist. Food banks should not exist.

Some of the people who oppose the lifting of this limit are also willing to ignore the fact that the policy itself did not work on its own terms. It did not limit the number of children born, but merely condemned them to living in poverty. They are also willing to ignore the evidence that dealing with poverty in childhood is much more cost-effective than mopping up later. It prevents huge costs later down the line in terms of education, health or indeed the criminal justice system.

I am not saying that there are no feckless parents. Of course there are feckless parents, and there have always been feckless parents. I remember my great-grandma telling the story of having to go to the pub on a Friday night to try to get the housekeeping money off her drunkard father. She used to tell it as a funny story with a smile on her face, but it was not funny then and it is not funny now. I was really quite shocked at Reform saying that it would keep the two-child limit on universal credit and instead put that money into reducing the cost of beer. I love a drink—do not get me wrong—but I cannot help but think that, if Reform Members were around 100 years ago, they would have been standing with my drunkard ancestor, rather than with the little girl with her hand out for the housekeeping money. Do we condemn hundreds of thousands of children to poverty because there are a few feckless parents?

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that fecklessness is not a trait exhibited only by poorer people in our country?

[Lizzi Collinge]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that fecklessness is not limited to any one socioeconomic group. It is interesting how people born into great wealth consider their position to be due only to their very hard work, yet they consider it to be other people’s own fault if they are born into poverty. That is really quite shocking.

More than 1 million children live in households unable to afford even the most basic necessities of life. There are parents choosing between heating and eating, children doing their homework on the floor in housing that is too crowded to provide a space to study, whole families staying in one room because that is all they can afford to heat, and kids wheezing due to damp. What compounds this heartbreak is that childhood poverty festers and grows. It infects people’s prospects in education, health and employment across their whole life.

Rather than tackling that, discussions about welfare inevitably descend into conversations about merit: who deserves help and who does not. These are children we are talking about—children entirely reliant on adults for their existence and their support, and entirely reliant on Governments such as ours to make sure they are looked after if, from no fault of their own, their parents do not have enough money for the necessities of life.

If this Victorian attitude to the deserving and undeserving poor had won the day previously, we would not have had any of the public services that we now take for granted. We would not have had free education, because why should parents not just pay for education themselves? We would not have had the NHS, because why should people not just pay for doctors themselves? As we know, Reform Members would be very happy to get rid of the NHS and bring in a private insurance system. None of us earned those things through our own merit; we inherited them from people who recognised that everyone deserves a good chance in life and the chance to thrive and succeed, whether by starting their own business, getting an education or doing whatever it is that will make their life a good life. That is the obligation we have to our children.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and others have shown that scrapping the two-child benefit limit could drive the single largest fall in child poverty in a single Parliament. My local Citizens Advice has done a brilliant report saying that scrapping the two-child limit is the fastest and most cost-effective intervention to tackle child poverty.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

The child poverty crisis that we inherited from the previous Government is, indeed, stark. In 2014, 16.5% of children were in relative poverty and by 2024, that had risen to 21.8%. The simple truth is that Conservative Members oppose a measure that lifts children out of poverty. They have not changed.

Successive Conservative Governments—and yes, the Liberal Democrats, who cannot get off scot-free, given the coalition—carried out policies that led to hundreds of thousands more children being pushed into poverty. To be precise, the figure is 900,000 more , leaving 4.5 million children living in poverty across our country. That is a shameful number, as large as the population of countries such as Croatia or Ireland. By the end of the Conservatives’ time in office, almost a third of children in the UK were living in poverty. That tells us exactly who they prioritised and who they did not. Even now, they would undo progress.

[Stuart Anderson]

Will the hon. Member say what statistic backs up the statement that a third of the children in the UK were living in poverty?

--- Later in debate ---

[John Slinger]

The number of children—[Interruption.] The number of children in poverty rose substantially.

[Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)]

I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that the statistics on below-average-income households are published annually by the Department for Work and Pensions, which is the source of the statistic that he so cleverly deployed in the course of his argument.

[John Slinger]

That is indeed the statistic that I was reaching for in my notes, and I thank my hon. Friend.

Even now, Opposition Members would undo progress. They would reintroduce the limit; they would make things worse. And as for Reform UK— [Hon. Members: “Where are they?”] Exactly! Where are they? We have seen populist policy hokey-cokey already today. It was probably taking place while the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin) was speaking.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

The Reform policy really is quite something, as I am sure my hon. Friend would agree. In fact, if someone lost their child benefit because of the Reform policy, it would take 345 pints a week to make a saving. So it does not really help anyone, but it does hurt those in the most poverty. Will my hon. Friend recommend that people do not listen to the easy answers of Reform and actually work to make people’s lives better?

[John Slinger]

I thank my hon. Friend. I was very moved by his speech, which he delivered from a position of great knowledge and great concern built up over a very impressive career. He is absolutely right. I, of course, would not recommend people to take too seriously policies that are, as I said, populist policy hokey-cokey. To scrap or to reinstate? It is hard to tell. What we have seen from Reform UK is the concept of political triangulation being stretched absolutely to breaking point. In fact, it has broken, with some of the populist nonsense that Reform has spoken about in recent days.

[Dr Sandher]

I like a pint as well, as it happens—sometimes more than one—but I think it is fair to say that parents across this country will not appreciate getting 5p off each pint they buy, knowing that it will make more children hungry. I am pretty shocked by the trade-off there. I agree with supporting our pubs, and I will do it every single weekend as part of our patriotic duty, but that is not fair. There is another, more damaging, side to this which says that if we just deport and attack enough people, it will make us richer. That is absolutely something that we on this side of the House should reject, and something that Members on the other side of the House sometimes reject as well.

[John Slinger]

I could not have put it better, particularly the point my hon. Friend made about enjoying a pint. I too enjoy a pint, but linking something as serious as tackling child poverty to the price of a pint in our pubs is trivialising an incredibly serious topic—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) is speaking from a sedentary position. Would he like to intervene?

[Dr Evans]

I just see the irony of the hon. Member talking about linking this to alcohol, which is a serious problem. Gambling is a serious problem as well, and his party has directly linked this to gambling, even though this is not a hypothecated tax. Could he explain the dichotomy between the two?

[John Slinger]

It is perfectly acceptable and reasonable for a Government such as ours to take measures in Budgets to provide the resources necessary to enact a policy, as this Bill would do, that will lift so many children out of poverty. I think the hon. Member makes a fairly fatuous point, if I may say so.

[Sam Rushworth]

Does my hon. Friend share my confusion at the point that has just been made? Does it not illustrate that all of this is about choices, and that the choice that is being made on this side of the House is, yes, to increase the tax on gambling and on mansions in order to decrease child poverty? The choice that Reform would make would be to increase child poverty for 5p off a pint.

[John Slinger]

I am assuming that the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth is opposing the policy before us today. So you actually do not want to take the measure that we are going to take—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. “You”, Mr Slinger—I have mentioned this to you so many times. Let us start again.

[John Slinger]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman is opposing the policy that will reduce child poverty by an enormous number.

Conservative Members have not really even tried to defend their record. Perhaps that is because it is indefensible. Their decisions were not accidents; they were choices. The consequences were known, the damage was predictable and the outcome is now painfully clear. Years of ignoring child poverty have left this country with many problems, including the number of children not in education, employment or training. That is an inheritance that this Government are now tackling, not least through the excellent work of Alan Milburn and his investigation into work and child poverty that was commissioned by my right hon. Friend the Work and Pensions Secretary.

Children are being condemned to a lifetime of economic inactivity, which is bad for them and their future wealth. As the “Keep Britain Working” report found, someone leaving the workforce in their 20s would lose up to £1 million in earnings. It is also bad for their health. Having four more years in education on average relates to a 16% reduction in mortality rates and reduces the risk of heart disease and diabetes. It is also bad for the country—all that untapped potential and all that unnecessary benefit spend.

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

Will the hon. Member give way?

[John Slinger]

I will not give way.

The arguments we heard about parental responsibility, the claim that people have children to get benefits, are short-sighted, wrong and, frankly, insulting. The shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), could not cite any evidence for her claims.

[David Baines]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. He says no evidence was given for those arguments. That is because there is no evidence, and yet opponents of the policy continue to make the arguments. Does he agree that it is damaging, dangerous and insulting to children and to families that are working hard up and down the land to do the best they can?

[John Slinger]

I agree with my hon. Friend that it is insulting, and it was surprising that the shadow Secretary of State could not cite any evidence at all.

Regardless of any two-child limit, parents will of course still have children, and those children must never be punished for the circumstances of their birth. The best way to support them, the single most effective way to lift them out of poverty, is this Bill.

Some Members across the House and some across our country implied that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor does not care about child poverty. They implied and claimed that she does not care about economic inactivity and our moral duty. That accusation was not just wrong; it was deeply disrespectful, particularly given her long record of campaigning on these issues.

[Graham Stuart]

I was not here earlier in the debate, so please forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman talked about Members being able to back up their assertions. Who was it in the debate who suggested that the Chancellor did not care? I have never heard anyone on the Opposition side of the House saying that she does not care. Whether she is capable of dealing with it is a different matter entirely, but who was it who said she did not care, because I am sure we would all want to take it up with them and tell them to change their line?

[John Slinger]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention; I always enjoy them. I found this one particularly amusing—and I very much respect and like the right hon. Gentleman—given that I was not actually quoting. I did not say, “And I quote”. I am allowed to use words without having to justify every single one. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman knows full well that I was referring to the general view of hon. and right hon. Members in this House. [Interruption.] I think I have dealt with that—it was a good effort, but I will move on.

This measure, made possible by the policies of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor—let’s not forget that—will lift 450,000 children out of poverty, and I am proud to say that that includes 2,020 children in Rugby. Let me be clear: lifting the two-child limit is not the whole answer; it is part of the Government’s wider mission. I say to people outside this Chamber, “Do not let the doomsters, the gloomsters, the cynics and the propagandists mislead you.” In just 19 months, as part of that wider mission, this Labour Government have achieved the following: day-one rights for paternity and parental leave; Best Start family hubs bringing health, parenting and wellbeing under one roof; 30 hours of funded childcare from nine months old; free breakfast clubs, with 405 children in my constituency of Rugby benefiting from the April roll-out; minimum and living wages up; record investment in schools; apprenticeships reformed; full funding for apprenticeships for under-25s in our small and medium-sized enterprises; the youth guarantee, mentioned by the Chancellor in the recent Budget; ensuring routes into work, training and education; and Young Futures hubs and youth hubs. May I please ask Ministers on the Front Bench whether I can have one of those hubs in Rugby? Helping children is about more than lifting the two-child cap. This Government do not, and should not, define our moral purpose solely by the pounds we give to those in need—although we should of course give money to those in need. Unlike the Conservatives, we will do those things I listed and, of course, spend money on lifting the two-child limit.

We are glad to do that because it is not just about poverty in financial terms; it is about the poverty of aspiration for our children, which all too often results from the policies of the parties of the right, and it is about the poverty of ambition for what a Government can and should do to unleash the potential of all children. We reject that poverty too. Opportunity, prosperity and dignity for all cannot come—whether through the animal spirits of the economy or the progressive policies of a Government such as ours—unless child poverty is ended once and for all.

In conclusion, we are the Labour party; we want to give young people the skills and opportunities, and to create the ecosystem, that will unleash their potential. That starts by preventing their early years from being blighted unnecessarily by poverty. We also stand for compassion and support for those who really need it, and that is what we will provide. Ending the two-child limit, and the wider measures I have outlined, are vital to ensuring that our young people become the architects of their futures, not merely tenants living in a world shaped by the older generations, by vested interests and, indeed, by those who are opposed to this Bill.