Debbie Abrahams MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 23 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  The response to my right hon. Friend will be that everything that is being asked for—the outcomes that he would like—are in the terms of reference and will be addressed within the Education Committee’s child poverty strategy inquiry.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  Can the shadow Minister remind the Committee of the weekly rate for the standard UC allowance?

• 23 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  Is the hon. Member aware of the tackling child poverty strategy and the inquiry by the Education Committee and Work and Pensions Committee looking at just that, as well as at the data the Education Secretary published before Christmas?

• 23 Feb 2026 · Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving · Hansard source

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  I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. Young people with special educational needs or disabilities, and with multiple disadvantage, are three times more likely to be not in education, employment or training. I appreciate what my right hon. Friend is saying about reducing the attainment gap, but will she expand a little more on that? Will she also pick up on the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Hallam (Olivia Blake) about co-production, and ensuring that people with lived experience and parents are engaged in this?

• 10 Feb 2026 · Pensions and Social Security · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend may not know this, but the Minister and I were on the Work and Pensions Committee when the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Trussell Trust presented the case for the essentials. I think there is overwhelming support for such measures, but it is a question of how we do it in a sustainable way. If I may go on and develop my argument a little, he will see that I am moving in his direction. As we have heard, the new state pension will also increase by 4.8% in April to £241.30 per week, which is in line with the annual increase in the average wage earnings index from last May to September. Briefly, I will explain why it is important that the increase in UC should be above CPI and inflation. Although state support for working-age people and pensioners was fairly similar when annual uprating was first introduced in 1972, the uprating or increase in working-age social security support such as UC in line with inflation has not always happened. In the last 15 years, social security support for working-aged people increased by only 1% between 2013 and 2016, and it was frozen between 2016 and 2020. If anyone wants to look at the changes to inflation over the past 15 years, it makes interesting reading, particularly in 2022-23 and 2023-24, and the increase was far below inflation. As a result, since 2012 benefit levels for working-aged people and their families have lost 8.8% of their value. The UK’s social protection levels are among the least generous in the OECD. In 2021, the New Economics Foundation estimated that the actual loss in cash terms was equivalent to £14 billion. It also estimated that if spending had been maintained, there would have been 1.5 million fewer people living in poverty. People are often surprised to hear that over the last 20 years or so, the amount of DWP spending as a percentage of GDP—that is acknowledged as the only way we can fairly compare spending—has changed very little: it was 10% in 2005 and 11% in 2025, with the slight increase being accounted for by an increase in spending on pensioners. I think we would all agree that that is the right thing to do. What is alarming is that although poverty levels have been stabilised and will start coming down this year as a result of, for example, the removal of the two-child limit for social security support and the increase in the living wage, the depth of poverty is increasing.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Pensions and Social Security · Hansard source

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  I am familiar with the child payment, but I need to understand it in the context of what else is happening in Scotland. I am aware of it, and I think it is an interesting way for Scotland to try to address the issue. We had a meeting with the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland and were impressed with what she was doing, but I will reserve judgment until I understand it a little more in the round. Only last week, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published new analysis: “In 2021-24, the average person in poverty had an income 29% below the poverty line, with the gap up from 23% in 1994-97”. If we use equivalised figures, that means that couples without children are living on less than £12,500 a year, and couples with two children under 14 get about £17,500 a year. Social security is complex, but looking at deep poverty, as my right hon. Friend the Minister is doing, is important. If we are to avoid the appalling situation with NEETs that we have inherited, that is what we need to do. Of the 14.2 million people living in poverty identified in JRF’s most recent poverty analysis, 6 million are in severe and persistent poverty, and more than half are disabled or live in a disabled household. Although I recognise the significant moves that this Government have made to address the inadequacy of working-age social security support to tackle the poverty and cost of living crisis that people are experiencing, I personally think we need to be a bit bolder. As I said last week, I want to see us be clearer about our vision and values, which define what our social security system is for. It is 80 years since the National Insurance Act 1946, which was introduced in response to the Beveridge report and the outcomes and appalling circumstances after the second world war. I believe we need a new social contract that the British people can buy into and that spells out how all the elements of a comprehensive 21st century welfare state work together to deliver for them. Our social security system, like our NHS, should be there for all of us in our time of need. It should protect us from poverty if we lose our jobs, are born with or acquire health conditions or disabilities, and when we grow old. It should also be there for us if and when we need extra support, become carers and, sadly, lose a loved one, but it cannot work in isolation; it needs to be considered in conjunction with our health and social care, education and skills, and business and employment systems in particular, but there are more. Without a fit and healthy working-age population, a skilled workforce and a fair employment system providing quality, well-remunerated jobs, our economic productivity is known to fall, and our welfare system as a whole then comes under threat. As an example, Health Equity North’s “Health for Wealth” report shows that improving the health of the north to the same level as the rest of the country would add an extra £18.4 billion to the economy through enhanced productivity while reducing demand on the NHS. Last year, the Work and Pensions Committee commissioned Health Equity North to report on what income could be generated through increasing returns to work for people in receipt of universal credit by just 5%. Its estimates show that that would yield an extra £20 billion over the life of this Parliament, with a return on investment of between £5.21 and £6.63 for every £1 of employment support invested. That is the way that we will reduce DWP spending and increase growth. I look forward to seeing how the “Get Britain Working” and “Keep Britain Working” programmes, such as Connect to Work and the vanguards, are expanded. They are fantastic examples of how we can proceed. I was so impressed when I met organisations delivering Connect to Work. The Work and Pensions Committee had a session last week with Sir Charlie Mayfield and small businesses to see how they could be involved in that, and I hope that we can expand and build on this work.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Pensions and Social Security · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about those two figures. The fact is that more than half of the current NEET cohort—52.9%—have experienced not just child poverty, but family adversity. That is the five times more likely figure.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Pensions and Social Security · Hansard source

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  I am pleased to follow the shadow Minister. I would like to challenge several things she said, but I will pick up on just a couple. First, one of the hon. Lady’s opening statements was that hard-working people who get up at dawn and go out to work do not approve of this increase in support. I gently point out to the hon. Lady that most people in receipt of social security support are working, but they are in the low-paid jobs that were presided over by previous Conservative Administrations. Secondly, the hon. Lady spoke of her concerns about young people. Yes, absolutely, nearly 1 million young people are not in education, employment or training and that concerns us all, but we must all look at the evidence and at the underlying causes of that. She might not have heard me say last week—I have said it a few times—that evidence from the UK Millenium cohort study suggests that half of that population have experienced childhood poverty and adversity in their young years, under the former Conservative Government, and that is the driver. People are five times more likely not to be in education, employment or training if they have experienced that long childhood of poverty and adversity—I do not think the shadow Minister would claim that that has not happened. It is also a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Minister. I give the pensions and social security uprating orders my wholehearted support. The uprating is absolutely the right thing to do, and I will expand on exactly why. This year’s uprating, confirmed last November by the Secretary of State, will see inflation-linked benefits and tax credits rise by 3.8% this April, which is the level of inflation as measured by the consumer prices index in September 2025. As a result of the Universal Credit Act 2025—some people did not support that, but I did once we got rid of the bits I had concerns about—we increased the universal credit standard allowance. That is important, as it means an additional 2.3% for the standard allowance, which equates to an increase in the standard allowance for a single claimant over 25 from £400.14 to £424.90 per calendar month.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  Absolutely; my hon. Friend is a wonderful member of the Select Committee, and I thank her for that. In particular, she is very active on our joint inquiry with the Education Committee. In the space of the 15 years between 2010 and when we were elected in 2024, child poverty escalated from 3.9 million children, or 29%, to 4.3 million, or 31%. To go back to the calculation at the beginning of my speech, the impact on families that have been bereaved as a consequence of the unfortunate position they found themselves in financially should not be underestimated. Like many of us, I have constituents who have grown up under the clouds and chains of austerity, while clinging on to the hope that things could get better. That hope is why we are here on these Labour Benches, and we know how important what we are now doing is in rebuilding trust with the people who invested their vote in us and trusted us to deliver for them. I cannot thank the Government enough for doing this, but as has been said, it is a down payment and there needs to be more. We can overturn the horrors of the last 15 years. We have done so in the past, and we can again. We have prepared the ground for a better Britain, and this year we will start to see children and their families flourish, but I recognise that this is only the first step. We are lifting 450,000 to 500,000 children out of poverty, which is fantastic, but that is only about 10% of all the children living in poverty, and we need to have our eyes on the remaining 90%. This is an important first step, but we must say that it is only the first step. The Chair of the Education Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), and I are looking forward to exploring just how we can do more. As I have previously said, we need to be thinking beyond individual departmental budgets. Tackling child poverty needs a whole-system Government approach, which includes how we budget and how the Office for Budget Responsibility scores Budgets. We need to use evidence much better in our policy planning. Our impact analyses are very narrow, and do not reflect how people experience poverty and the impacts that that has not just on the DWP, but on other Departments. That needs to change. Finally, when unequivocal evidence is presented to us—some of the evidence is only just emerging; the UK millennium cohort study that I mentioned came on stream only in the last six or seven months—it is right that we respond to it. That is a strength, not a weakness, and it demonstrates humility and integrity. Poverty and inequality are not inevitable; they are political choices driven by values, and when the evidence changes, so should our decisions.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  Of the measures brought forward in this Government’s Budget last year, the abolition of the two-child limit is the one that most fills me with hope and more than a little pride, so I thank the Government for listening to so many of us who raised this issue as a concern. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has reminded us, child poverty is not just about children going hungry once in a while, or not being able to buy the designer trainers they want. For every 1% increase in child poverty, more babies die before their first birthday. In fact, this causal link has been quantified, and it amounts to 5.8 additional deaths per 100,000 live births. A baby born into a poor family is five times more likely to die than a baby born into a wealthy one. I ask Opposition Members to consider that when they make their interventions and speeches. If such children are lucky enough to survive their first year, they will be more likely to suffer poor physical and mental ill health and more likely to end up as an emergency hospital admission. The impacts on their neurological development as they grow are profound. How the brain makes its neural connections changes because of the stress and adversity that children go through. In turn, that affects behaviour, cognitive development and achievements in school. These disadvantages continue into adolescence and adulthood, so every aspect of children’s lives is affected. We are rightly concerned about the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training, and nearly 1 million 16 to 24-year-olds are NEETs. We must look at the evidence for why that is, not just jump to conclusions for political expediency. There is strong evidence from the UK millennium cohort study that persistent exposure to poverty and childhood adversity, including poor parental mental health, means that such people are five times more likely to be NEET. It is estimated that more than half—nearly 53%—of current NEET cases are attributable to persistent exposure to poverty and childhood adversity. It is not because young people fancy a duvet day, and I really think it is disgraceful that such phrases are repeated in the media. This pattern goes on right through adolescence and young adulthood, and it affects people’s earning capacity, as we have heard. When in government, the Conservatives were warned repeatedly. I was a shadow Work and Pensions Minister, and I represented the Labour party during the passage of the original legislation, so I know they had repeated warnings. I chaired an all-party parliamentary group that raised the issue, and we engaged with the Faculty of Public Health, which did an impact analysis to identify the harms that would take place. We also did a retrospective analysis to show the damage the policy was having. That legislation introduced not only the two-child limit and the benefit cap, but the benefit freeze—we must not forget the benefit freeze—and the harms those policies have caused to the lives of children, who are now our young adults, are absolutely shameful.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 3 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman just spoke of whether or not the expenditure was wise. He also spoke about choices. I do not know whether he heard my speech, but children who are born into poor families are five times—five times—more likely to die just because they are poor than children in families with a little more income. Is it fair to a child if they die just because they were born into a poor family? I cannot understand the hon. Gentleman’s logic.

• 26 Jan 2026 · “Keep Britain Working” Review: Recommendations · Hansard source

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  15. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of his Department's progress on implementing the recommendations of the “Keep Britain Working” review.

• 26 Jan 2026 · “Keep Britain Working” Review: Recommendations · Hansard source

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  As my right hon. Friend knows, Sir Charlie made a number of recommendations, including providing evidence of returns on investments that would incentivise more businesses to take part in preventive measures to ensure that their workers remain healthy and in work. Given the excellent network of academic centres across the UK, how will the proposed workplace health intelligence unit harness their expertise, and ensure that we are reducing health inequalities that also dampen productivity and economic growth?

• 5 Jan 2026 · Middle East and North Africa · Hansard source

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  I welcome my hon. Friend’s statement. The lack of progress in Gaza is a real concern. On top of this, we have seen a shockingly callous display by the Israeli Government in their banning of 37 organisations. It is just incomprehensible. I want to focus on what is happening in the west bank, where people are being stripped of their land and murdered in cold blood. As the illegal settlements are expanded, when will the Government act in lockstep with international allies and use the legislative tools at their disposal, such as the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018, so that we can stop the illegal trade that is happening and ensure that we are banning goods, services and investments from the illegal settlements?