Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

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

[Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)]

I am proud to support the Bill and do so with the families of Southampton firmly in mind. Those are families who fell foul of the last Conservative Government’s mission to make Britain Dickensian again.

Child deprivation in my city is among the worst in the country—worse than more than 83% of local authorities. Here, that is a potentially abstract statistic; there, it is reflected in the lived reality of my constituents. More than one in five working-age adults in Southampton are on universal credit. That rises to an average of one in three in our most deprived neighbourhoods. As colleagues have said, many of those people are working hard but are still falling short. What was the last Conservative Government’s answer to that? It was to count the children and punish the whole family. No doubt tonight Conservative Members will traipse through the Lobby and vote to keep a lid on the 450,000 children who are about to be released from poverty.

The two-child limit simply did not work. If anything, it compounded the pressures on families—families who repeatedly tell me that the universal credit they receive barely covers the rent, let alone food, heating or school essentials. That is the Tory legacy, and that is the deeply entrenched poverty that this Labour Government are having to undo bit by bit. It is therefore no surprise that an estimated 10,000 children in Southampton still live in households with absolute low income and that 25% of children live in households with relative low income. These realities demand clear action, and this Bill is part of that action being led by the Labour Government.

[Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. The issues he describes in his Southampton constituency apply in a similar way to my residents in Reading. Does he agree that an important aspect of the Government’s work is not only what we are debating today, but the wider and broader package of measures, such as help on housing and the cost of transport and the warm homes initiative? Perhaps he will talk about the overall impact of these measures.

[Darren Paffey]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that salient point, and I will come to that wider package of measures.

Of course, we have heard straw-man arguments, saying, “Well, this one thing will not solve child poverty.” No one is claiming that it will solve child poverty; it is one piece in the jigsaw of the wider work that this Government are doing. But I am glad that this punitive, arbitrary cap, which only made life worse for so many, is being scrapped. That will lift up to 2,500 children in Southampton Itchen out of poverty.

If I were to credit the Conservative Opposition with one thing in this debate, it would be their consistency.