Streeting makes eve of budget intervention on child health, poverty and two-child limit

Today Health Secretary Wes Streeting gave a wide ranging speech to health think tank Kings Fund at their conference held in partnership with children’s charity Barnardos.

The speech praised the work done to turn around NHS waiting lists and more wide ranging Labour policies that have an impact on child health such as the expansion of free school meals.

Streeting also spoke of his own childhood growing up in poverty in the East End. He said “it is nothing compared to the lives of children whose challenges confront me in my constituency surgeries today.” comparing the level of state support his family received to that available today.

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In the speech he made a passionate argument about the “contested territory” of welfare support saying:  “I do not buy into the idea that those in need of state support are all feckless, irresponsible and on the take. In fact, the real scandal in Britain today are the numbers of parents who are both in work and in poverty.” he also said “I do not believe it is morally right to punish children or abandon them to the trap of poverty because of the choices of their parents.”

As it is widely expected that the Chancellor will reverse the two child benefit cap tomorrow, Streeting indicated this saying “The Tories pushed more than half a million children into poverty with measures like the two-child limit and Labour is reversing the damage.” and later added “we need to wage war against child poverty in our country confidently, not apologetically.”

When asked about the two child limit in questions after the speech Streeting said: “without pre-empting the Chancellor’s budget tomorrow, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have been clear and consistent.

Labour opposed the two child limit when it came in because we feared, as has transpired, that it would trap children, young people, in poverty.

“The only question has been for us, given the scale of the pressures on the public finances and given the whole range of things we need to do, is this something that is affordable right now? That has been the constraining factor.

“The Chancellor will set out where we are and her decision tomorrow, I would just say  that the two child limit has been a terrible policy that has trapped children in poverty.

“This is…a rallying cry to everyone that we have to win the moral argument, and we have to win the pragmatic argument for tackling poverty.

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“This is an argument that needs to be won… It is an argument about what kind of country we want to be, what kind of society we are.

“I want to make sure that more kids from backgrounds like mine have my sort of opportunities and life chances, that people like me are not the exception, the people that beat the odds.

“But you know, we’re going to change the odds for everyone. That is what this Labour Government is about. Those are the decisions and the values and the choices that are at the heart of the Chancellor’s and the Prime Minister’s thinking. But we’ve got a fight to win on this, and we need all of you who agree with us to speak up and join the fight against poverty and inequality in our country.”

Streeting was speaking ahead of tomorrow’s budget where the Chancellor is widely expected to end the two child limit.

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