Two-child Benefit Cap: Foreign-born Children

Viscount Younger of Leckie Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. We have another question in a moment about the child poverty strategy, so I get to spend 20 minutes talking about child poverty. Tackling child poverty has to be done on so many fronts and our strategy looks at people’s incomes, the costs they are facing and how we can give them opportunities. I am so proud that the Government have decided to do things such as extending free school meals to those on universal credit. Children need to arrive at school ready to learn, and you cannot be ready to learn if you are hungry. It is also a way of tackling the cost of living for so many families who are struggling. I am proud that we are making childcare more available and getting more support to those who are on universal credit who want to do the right thing and work but face barriers in their way. And I am proud that we are rolling out Best Start family hubs and all kinds of measures. Our children are not just our present; they are the future of our country. If we invest in them, we invest in Britain. It is the right thing to do.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, let me highlight some more statistics. The Government’s own impact assessment states that the addition to the benefits bill will be £13.6 billion over five years. Families with five children will gain £10,900 per year and those with six children will gain £16,600 per year, and almost half the households involved have no one in work. This is extremely worrying. This policy is surely rewarding worklessness. How are the Government intending to prevent the lifting of the two-child limit weakening work incentives or increasing long-term benefit dependency among larger families?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure the noble Viscount knows that, although we are lifting the two-child limit, the Government are not lifting the benefit cap on the total amount that any household can get. The benefit cap encourages parents to take responsibility and work towards financial independence. There is, for example, an exemption from the benefit cap if somebody is in work and earning at least the minimum wage for the requisite number of hours. The challenge for us is to make sure that parents want to work, that we support them to work and that we take away the barriers that are in their way, for example on childcare or being able to get the jobs and the support they need. These things have to be separate. We should be supporting our children, but children benefit from their parents being in work wherever possible, so we should be doing both of these. If we were just doing one, the noble Viscount would have a point. This is part of our strategy to invest in support for parents, to invest in employment support, and to make sure that whole families benefit from our policies.