BISHOPS in the House of Lords “have consistently opposed the two-child limit right from its introduction”, the Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Revd Martyn Snow, said last week. His remarks came during the Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill debate, which approved the legislation.
He recalled that “the former Bishop of Durham [the Rt Revd Paul Butler] introduced a Private Member’s Bill seeking to abolish the limit in 2022. . . For us, this is part of a much wider calling to combat poverty in all its forms, addressing its causes and wider effects.”
Bishop Snow said that he had “spent much of my working life living in communities where poverty was very real — both the absolute poverty of one of the poorest nations in Africa, where I worked for several years, and the relative poverty of inner-city Sheffield, where I was vicar for a decade”.
He spoke of “the poverty-shame nexus: the mutually reinforcing relationship between material hardship and the emotional experience of shame.
“Universal Credit and its system of sanctions arguably institutionalise the poverty-shame nexus. . . It is my belief that the two-child limit to Universal Credit has only added to the poverty-shame nexus. The assumption would appear to be that if you are on Universal Credit, and have more than two children, you are somehow not being responsible.”
It was his “hope that, once this policy is changed, we can work together to find other areas whereby those who are caught in poverty are enabled to contribute their gifts and skills to wider society”.
Introducing the debate, the Minister of State in the Department for Work and Pensions, Baroness Sherlock, set out the context. “There are now four and a half million children in poverty — 900,000 more than there were in 2010. . . Picture a classroom of 30 children; at the moment; around ten of them will be living in poverty. Some two million of our children are in deep material poverty, lacking the basic essentials such as a warm home or healthy food.”
She continued: “Few investments will reap rewards as great as investing in the next generation, in our future workforce. Failing to act on child poverty will cost Britain far more than investing now. That is why removing the two-child limit is part of our wider child-poverty strategy.”
Speaking for the Opposition, Baroness Stedman-Scott explained why the Conservatives did not support the Bill: “We believe there are other ways to support them that mean that money can be used differently to achieve the objective of improving their lives. . . What this debate increasingly appears to be about is not responsible public policy but political party management.”
The new Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Teather gave her maiden speech. “I spent most of my decade-long civilian sabbatical away from politics leading a UK charity in the refugee sector, the Jesuit Refugee Service [JRS],” she said. “I learned much at JRS about the way destitution and homelessness eat away at dignity, but also about the transformative power of relationships and community.”
She was followed by another Liberal Democrat, Baroness Janke, who struck a pastoral note. “Half the families who will benefit from the removal of the two-child limit . . . were not on benefits when they had children, but catastrophes happen to families,” she said. “People lose their jobs or become ill; families break up; people die, or family members need extra care. This is why we have social security, as these misfortunes do not happen just to the poor; they happen to us all.”
In a lengthy concluding speech, Baroness Sherlock said that Baroness Teather and Bishop Snow had “made some very interesting points. Part of what we have to do is to invest in communities and relationships. All we can do with money is remove barriers . . . and how we can support all those in our communities to develop and to fulfil their potential.”
After this Second Reading, and with no further work required, the Bill was read a third time and passed.
