February 2026

It is an honour to be here under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) for securing this debate. Many of my constituents are in regular contact with me about safety in their town centres and local high streets. If criminals are allowed to prevail, law abiding residents feel unsafe and are deterred from popping to their high street and town centre. That adds to the deterioration of our high streets and town centres, which have already had 14

Of course I support the Bill. It is what we are here for: to do this at the stroke of a pen—not of any pen, but that of a Government pen—after years in opposition, hoping to be able to come in and enact the sort of change we are able to make today. I am proud to stand in support of this Bill, and of the work that the Minister for Social Security and Disability continues to do in assessing the welfare reforms to come. In my constituency, child poverty is a daily reality for too many families. Mor

I thank the Minister for his work on this matter and for his statement. I want to raise the testimony of a constituent, a British-Iranian woman who fled Iran after being arrested three times for campaigning for the rights of women and children. She was raped and tortured in detention. Following the latest events, she received only brief calls from family before all communications were cut. Her relatives report people being shot in the streets, women and children being killed, bodies being withhe

I commend Cotswold district council for that work. Unfortunately, when I tried to get East Cambridgeshire district council to condemn the two-child cap, the Conservatives refused. This policy was poorly conceived from the outset and has amounted to little more than attacks—not on parents, but on vulnerable children growing up in a cost of living crisis. My Ely and East Cambridgeshire constituency, which is relatively wealthy and has relatively high-paid work, is thankfully below the national ave

Like so many Members from across the House, I welcome the Government’s decision finally to scrap the two-child limit on benefits—I just wish they had done so much earlier. The two-child limit is a cruel and unfair penalty on those in the most urgent need of welfare and support. The cap does not tackle the exploitation of the benefits system in order to avoid work and to continue having children; instead, it has been an enormous burden on thousands of household budgets and has pushed more childre

Labour MPs are lining up today to congratulate themselves on ending the two-child limit. I welcome that decision; I fought for it and I voted for it, and I was suspended and punished by my former party for doing so. While that punishment was being handed out by the Labour Whips Office on behalf of the Prime Minister, children in Coventry South and across the country paid the price. Facts matter: the two-child limit pushes an estimated 109 children into poverty every single day. From the moment I

I agree completely with the right hon. Gentleman. [Interruption.] If I could continue without the heckling from those on the Labour Benches who have now decided that child poverty is a priority they want to pursue—as I was saying, scrapping the two-child limit matters because the limit is the single biggest driver of rising child poverty. Scrapping it will lift hundreds of thousands of children closer to dignity and security. But this Labour Government have decided to stop halfway, because altho

The shadow Secretary of State must know that the vast majority of families in poverty include at least one adult in work. She asks how this Bill is being paid for. Well, it is being paid for by increased taxes on gambling giants. Would it not be more truthful to say that the hon. Lady is on the side of gambling giants rather than children in poverty?

The introduction of the two-child limit by the Conservatives in 2017 has had a devastating impact on child poverty rates. Every day, it affects 1.7 million children, with a loss of roughly £3,500 a year for affected families. A huge 17% of children in my constituency live in families subject to this inhumane and unjust policy. It is also a policy that has failed on its own terms: a study by the London School of Economics found that it did not increase employment rates among those families affect

I thank the right hon. Member for that intervention. I agree with the points that he made, particularly because, from my constituency inbox, huge numbers of constituents are effectively evicted because landlords keep hiking their rents. That is why I back his call, and the calls of Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham—our mayors—to allow local areas to introduce rent controls. I also back the calls of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for universal credit to cover the cost of essentials such as food, toilet

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) for securing this important debate. This issue comes up repeatedly with my local residents, who want to feel safe in our town—whether that is walking, shopping, eating or enjoying public spaces. Women and girls should feel safe at night. Families should be able to enjoy our town centre free from the fear of antisocial behaviour. As has already been mentioned, shop workers sh

It is true to say that the Conservative party has been right about one thing today: this is about choices, and I am incredibly proud to be making the one that we are making. The Conservative party did untold damage to our country, whether it was in hollowing out the criminal justice system, crumbling school buildings and hospitals, record NHS waiting lists or Liz Truss, but the most egregious part of its record was the harm it inflicted on our nation’s children. An entire generation was plunged

I was actually referring to the number of Opposition Members defending this policy here today. I do not think there is a single person in the country who will defend keeping hundreds of thousands more children in poverty. That is what we are getting rid of today, and that is what the hon. Gentleman’s party is defending. It is difficult to think of another policy in modern Britain that is so stark in its design and so devastating in its impact. This policy, for nearly a decade, has quietly and cr

Parliamentary appearance by Naushabah Khan

Parliamentary appearance by Mr James Frith

Parliamentary appearance by Mr James Frith

Parliamentary appearance by Nadia Whittome

Parliamentary appearance by Jack Abbott

Parliamentary appearance by Jack Abbott

Parliamentary appearance by Zarah Sultana