Suella Braverman has said parties should “come together in the spirit of compassion and common sense” as she called for an end to the two-child benefit cap.
The new Labour Government has faced pressure from charities, opposition parties and some backbenchers to abolish the limit.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said there is “no silver bullet” to end child poverty and acknowledged the “passion” of Labour MPs considering rebelling over the continuation of the policy that affects some 1.6 million children.
The party leadership have said they cannot afford to scrap the two-child benefit cap immediately because of the state of public finances.
During the King’s Speech debate on Monday on the economy and welfare, Suella Braverman shocked the chamber when she called on Labour to scrap the cap.
The former home secretary told the Commons: “There was one thing that struck me in the King’s speech. It wasn’t the long list of policies that will no doubt damage our economy. It wasn’t the vague promises that will not survive contact with reality.
“No, for me the thing that was conspicuous by its absence was the total failure of the Labour Government to deal with child poverty and scrap the two-child benefit cap on welfare. Yes, you heard that right.”
Following laughter and exclamations of disbelief from the Labour benches, Ms Braverman continued: “A bit of surprise I detect on the benches opposite but I am indeed rising to speak on behalf of scrapping the cap.”
Ms Braverman said she would be supporting ending the two-child cap because it speaks to her “profound sense of justice and, dare I say, compassion”.
As calls were heard from the opposition benches of “you voted for it”, the former minister explained that previous Conservative governments implemented and maintained the benefit cap as they had inherited “no less than an economic catastrophe” in 2010.
She said: “We were in a deep recession and we now have the fastest growing economy in the G7. So we had to make incredibly difficult decisions back in 2010 to reduce our welfare bill.”
She added: “We can make changes to some of the decisions that we made back then and it’s clear to me from my work with vulnerable families in Fareham that the cap isn’t working.
“It’s putting more children and families into relative poverty. It’s causing them to use more food banks.”
The former minister added: “The reason why it was introduced in the first place, ie to disincentivise poor families from having more children, has not necessarily worked.
“The number of children born has remained relatively stable and as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found, heartbreakingly 43% of those children in larger families are finding themselves in poverty.
“The children hardest hit are those under four and it’s affecting predominantly younger children and those in large families.
“I believe this cap is aggravating child poverty, and it’s time for it to go. Now I know about the argument ‘don’t have children if you can’t afford them’. For me that’s not compassionate. It’s not fair. It’s not the right thing to do.”
Ms Braverman is predicted to be a frontrunner in the upcoming Tory leadership election, and she also used her intervention on child poverty to discuss her views on the character and values of her party.
“We should as Conservatives be proudly and loudly the party of family. For those families on lower incomes we should encourage families to have more children.
“Those families on middle incomes and higher incomes, we should change our tax regime so that they are incentivised to have children. We have better parental leave policies, better child care provision policies, and better maternity care.
“I believe I’m a Conservative because I believe in the strength and the sovereignty of the family unit. We should be supporting it, not suppressing it.
“This is not about right or left. This is about right or wrong. Let’s come together in the spirit of compassion and common sense to scrap the cap and end child poverty for good.”
Labour MP for Finchley and Golders Green Sarah Sackman, who rose to make her maiden speech following Ms Braverman’s contribution, said: “Like some of you, I’m somewhat surprised at her rewriting of recent economic history. She’s had 14 years to fix the problems of child poverty and precious little to do that.”
Labour’s Kim Johnson (Liverpool Riverside) said: “This punitive policy needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history where it belongs.”
A number of amendments to the King’s Speech relating to the benefit cap have been tabled and the Speaker will decide which will be put to a vote on Tuesday evening.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall said work is under way on the Government’s plans to tackle child poverty, adding: “And as the Prime Minister announced, we will look at how to use all the available levers at our disposal, including household income, employment, housing, children’s health, education and childcare too.”
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