Reform UK labeled ‘racist’ over two-child benefit cap policy
Reform UK has been labeled racist for arguing that the two-child benefit limit should only be removed for families where both parents are British and working full-time.
Sian Berry, the Green Party’s MP for Brighton Pavilion, told MPs she wanted to “completely reject the racist agenda of Reform members’ objections”.
Peterborough Labor MP Andrew Pakes described the policy as “naked racism” and an “insult to British values”.
Meanwhile, Conservative former minister Kit Malthouse said Reform had called for “blatant discrimination” and that the policy would affect his own children and the children of current Reform MPs.
He said: “There is something strange about trying to pass legislation aimed at reducing the citizenship rating of your own children.”
But a Reform spokesman said the policy had “nothing to do with race” and that MPs had “deliberately misrepresented the policy”.
Reform MP Sarah Pochin backed her party’s policy, arguing that removing the two-child benefit limit completely rewards those who “game the system”.
He told MPs that birth rates were higher among foreign nationals, so Labor’s policy would mean “a significant portion of this additional spending” would go to households where at least one parent was born outside the UK.
The Runcorn and Helsby MP said: “Removing the two-child benefit limit would do no good to hard-working parents who set their alarm clocks every morning and do everything to encourage families already on benefits to have more children, knowing the state will pay for them.
“Removing the two-child benefit limit without introducing any other restrictions, such as restricting it to working families with British-born parents, fails to encourage work.
“This increases support for non-working families beyond support for working parents earning above the benefit level.
“So employees are punished, and those who game the system are rewarded.”
He added: “Due to higher birth rates among foreign nationals, a significant proportion of this additional spending is expected to go to households where at least one parent was born outside the UK.
“The reform will only remove the cap for British families where both parents work full-time.”
Reform MP Lee Anderson (Ashfield) added that “the British people must be given priority”.
Mr Malthouse, who served as education secretary under Liz Truss, accused Reform of “calling for blatant discrimination in our welfare system against parents who are entirely born in this country, or those who are entirely childless”.
He told MPs: “I declare an interest that includes my children, two of whom I have unborn as British citizens. This also includes the children of Reform Party MPs.”
“And there is something strange about trying to pass a law that aims to reduce the citizenship rating of your own children.”
But he also criticized the Government for its policy of removing the two-child benefit cap altogether, claiming that the government “rather than seeing children as a bonus to be encouraged, sees them as a burden that must be alleviated in some way”.
Mr Malthouse said: “We would prefer to have work incentives on this side of the house as well as children.
“When I was briefly secretary of state for education, I was inundated with correspondence and approaches from many productive and ambitious women seeking business help.
“Instead of seeing children as part of some kind of safety net from which women had to be rescued if they had children, they wanted some kind of bonus, some kind of benefit, some kind of package that would encourage them to have children.”
He argued that the country “needs more children” and so he hopes the mindset will shift from reduction to promotion.
The Tory MP added that “a huge demographic steam train is coming towards us through the tunnel” and pointed to forecasts suggesting there will be two workers for every retiree by 2050.
He asked: “How are we going to pay for all of this in the future? How are we going to finance it all without massive debt?”
Labour’s former shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, later branded Ms Pochin’s views “racist”; Bishop Auckland’s Labor MP Sam Rushworth said he was “deeply disturbed” by the comments.
Mr Rushworth said: “My wife was not born in this country, she came here as a teenager, worked in a meat factory, finished university and now works as a midwife in the NHS.
“I find the idea that she is somehow less entitled because of her birth to be frankly disgusting.”
A spokesman for Reform UK said: “Our policy has nothing to do with race.
“MPs making these comments are deliberately misrepresenting the policy.
“The UK Reform policy on the two-child limit applies to British couples who are both working full-time, whether by birth or naturalization.”
