Two-child Benefit Cap and Child Poverty

Debate between Margaret Greenwood and Kim Johnson

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Kim Johnson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. The cap has done immeasurable damage to so many families in this country, impacting poverty and driving more families into poverty and not, as this Government anticipated, into work.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this really important debate. According to the End Child Poverty coalition, more than 2,700 children were living in poverty in my constituency of Wirral West in 2021-22—that is more than 18% of the children. As my hon. Friend has touched on, we know that poverty has an impact on children’s educational attainment, happiness and life chances. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is a scandalous state of affairs, it makes absolutely no sense for us to leave this problem unattended and we must end the two-child limit as a matter of urgency?

[Kim Johnson]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. We need to end this horrendous two-child policy and ensure all children have the opportunity to thrive and grow and not live in poverty.

Last September, when I hosted an event in Parliament in partnership with the End Child Poverty coalition and the National Education Union calling for universal free school meals to help alleviate child poverty and close inequalities in education and health, we heard from some incredible youth ambassadors. They told us of the stigma of being singled out for free school meals. One said the impact was like sitting in a classroom wearing a badge on their back saying they were poor. Another told us she remembered her mother skipping meals to make sure she and her siblings had something to eat and that now, years later, her own relationship with food and the guilt she associated with eating is still having an impact on her. Members in all parts of the House will be painfully aware of so many similar personal stories from the constituents they work with every day.

Last year the Joseph Rowntree Foundation annual report on UK poverty showed that child poverty in families with more than two children increased from 33% to 47% between 2012-13 and 2019-20, reaching levels not seen since before 1997. In my constituency, 11 children in a class of 30 are living in poverty, and of the 1,400 children in households in receipt of universal credit, 444 are not eligible for extra support due to having two or more siblings born after 6 April 2017.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Debate between Margaret Greenwood and Kim Johnson

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kim Johnson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and I will be touching on that point. Others have mentioned today the rights that will be attacked. With all that in mind, how could this Bill be anything other than an unmitigated disaster? Equal pay, maternity and paternity rights, the 48-hour working week, minimum rest periods and holiday pay, to name but a few, are all on the table to be put on the scrapheap—and that’s not even the half of it. Can the Minister tell us where in the 2019 Conservative party manifesto it says that the Government intend to scrap all that? People in this country did not vote for this. Work will become more dangerous and yet more insecure.

This Bill is being driven forward by a small number of ideologues who are hellbent on discarding basic rights and protections, driving a reckless race to the bottom for workers. Hidden in this Bill are sunset clauses: provisions to create a countdown for the expiry of vital workplace protections by December next year. That means that by the time the festive season comes around next year, holiday pay could be off the table.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is giving a powerful speech, as she always does. She is talking about the sunset on retained EU law, causing most of it to expire by the end of 2023, handing over to the Executive immense powers to do whatever they wish. She is making a powerful case about the impact of that on workers’ rights. The Institute for Public Policy Research has raised the concern that this will create extraordinary uncertainty for businesses and workers, as well as the prospect of legal chaos. Does she agree that in recent weeks the Conservative Government have caused huge uncertainty for businesses and that this simply will not help?

[Kim Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point about the disruption that this Government have caused in the past couple of weeks and months. This is a zombie Government clinging to power in order to push through their destructive agenda. They are running scared from the people they are supposed to represent. They have no mandate, no plan to meet the challenges of the cost of living crisis and nothing to offer working people.

The Bill places our rights at work, our environment and our hard-won equal rights on a cliff edge, left to the mercy of Tory Ministers. The economy is on the floor, with the cost of living crisis set to cost thousands of lives this winter. We need a stable economy with a significant redistribution of wealth and power more than ever. I wish to appeal to the Conservative Members opposite: it is within your gift to stop this deeply destructive Bill and the threats it poses to your constituents. You are facing some of the lowest polling your party has ever seen. Your economic credibility is in the bin. After 12 years of Tory austerity—