My Lords, I congratulate our maiden speech-makers today and join in the general welcome to them. I draw from the noble Lord, Lord Walker, a very wise remark when he reminded our governing party that it is indeed the Labour Party, not the “Benefits Party”. While I think that all of us here share the passion and the ambition to lift families out of poverty and to make sure that children can have fulfilling lives, in the strong words of the Minister, I think it is more difficult than just making a modest extension in benefit provision for certain families in our society. If only it were that easy, I am sure parties would have done it a long time ago. What we are embarking on, surely, is a very ambitious programme which is trying to help, without interfering unnecessarily, all those families in which the children do not get that right opportunity.
Some children in poor families are let down because there is simply a lack of money. They have loving parents, and if there were a bit more money, they would not have to make such invidious choices about meals and support for the children at school, and trips and outings. Others are let down by adults in their lives who control them, abusing them or spending the money on too much alcohol and drugs, and not concentrating on providing them with the stable financial background they need. Some children are born into families in which there may be plenty of money or too little money, but they lack those other important things. They lack love. They lack support. They lack ambition for the children. They do not provide the guidance that good parents and good grandparents try to provide.
The state cannot be everybody’s parent, nor do we want it to be. The state wisely says that the Government, or a local authority, will intervene and pre-empt the parents only in extreme cases. We are talking about influencing, encouraging and supporting the parents. That can be done by many of us. Everyone here has been on a remarkable journey in their lives to date. Many have overcome considerable difficulties, from background, resistance or opposition, and have achieved great things already, so the more we can get out and talk and engage and encourage, the more it is possible that we can turn on a light in young minds and that they can see that something is possible that the adults around them have not told them about. Or maybe we can enthuse their teachers, who need to put ambition into their lives. There is nothing wrong with ambition; it can be a force for good, and it is releasing children from poor backgrounds if we can communicate to them that maybe they can achieve great things too.
The noble Lord, Lord Bird, said it very well in his remarks on social mobility. But of course, we are interested only in one-way mobility: we want people to be able to move up. We are not so keen on people moving down, and we try to cushion or help if they move down too quickly. The more people we promote, the more people fall below the average; that is the way the arithmetic works, but we want to live in a more prosperous society. There will always be people who are relatively worse off, but if it is around a much higher average living standard, then there will be so much more happiness in the world around us.
I say to the Government, given our shared ambitions to get more people out of poverty and give more encouragement to young people, that there are many other things than this Bill that they could or should be doing. The first thing is that it has to be much easier to get a job. Unfortunately, over the last 18 months, there has been a big rise in unemployment, and the combination of high taxes on jobs and on those businesses that need premises in our high streets—the shops and the entertainment and leisure businesses—has contracted the number of job opportunities. This will make it much more difficult for the Government to fulfil their ambitions, because this cannot be done without the good will and success of the entrepreneurs, as represented so ably here today by the noble Lord, Lord Walker.
The strand in Labour which is about the promotion of work and better working conditions is wholly admirable. Whenever I have been fortunate enough to run larger enterprises or be involved in their management, I have always been very encouraging of that strand in Labour. I have wanted people to be better paid, but it must be through bonuses or working smarter, so that the company can serve the public well without going bust. I have always wanted people to see that there is the chance of promotion. Most of us started with jobs we did not really want to do and had to work our way up. That is what ambition is all about.
The Government must think of a much bigger, bolder strategy. Paying extra benefits is not going to do it.
March 14, 2026
why is the UK welcoming escaping Iranian leading clerics? from their crazed ruling elite? who is giving them visas?
March 14, 2026
Good question and why are we letting any Iranians in when the may be Republican Guards.
On the topic of poverty, successive governments have undermined marriage and done nothing to encourage stable two parent families.
Much of the poverty in our inner cities is from a certain cohort who apparently feel the need to carry knives
A little investigation into these families in so called poverty finds that their benefits exceed that of people working but the priorities seem to be expensive cable TV packages, nail bars and tattoos.
No matter how much help is given, the majority in relative poverty will stay the same.n
March 14, 2026
yes the anti father nature of our divorce laws, and child custody courts, puts a lot of men off from marrying. which is not good for anyone. anyone who knows anything about what happens to blokes on divorce knows that the system in this country stinks.
it also gives females massive incentives to do the wrong thing, like have kids just to trap men into paying their bills, break up families and gain financially, and so on.
March 14, 2026
Well this is Dhimmitude. A term coined by author Bat Ye’or to describe the status of non-Muslims (dhimmi) living under Islamic rule, characterized by systematic subordination, legal discrimination, and security in exchange for subservience. It implies a state of being a protected but second-class citizen under Sharia law.
You would think we were already under Sharia Law really.
Of course in Iran, Syria and Egypt the left were used as the trogon horse to install Islam, then they were killed.
I look at the terrified face of Starmer…..
March 14, 2026
The last sentence I agree with “ Paying extra benefits is not going to do it”
However, I have no idea what this means :-
“..that is the way Toggle showing location of Column 515arithmetic works, but we want to live in a more prosperous society.“
As for more jobs, that is a big problem. Lots of current policies actually reduce job numbers.
Reply Apologies. I pasted it from Hansard and the computer put in words showing it was changing columns in Hansard. Now edited out.
March 14, 2026
Good morning.
The State, or more to the point political parties, promise to spend money taken from ‘others’. Trouble is, those ‘others’ are leaving by the plane load. So they result to borrowing more of ‘other’ peoples money and taxing even more people, mostly the Middle-Class, through evermore wealth taxes.
We all here know what will happen in the end. We just do not know when.
March 14, 2026
Sooner than we think Mark if global events and this motely crew have anything to do with it.
March 14, 2026
They’re not just doing that Mark B. They have been, and still are, importing hundreds of thousands of poor welfare-claimants-for-life every year and making “the others” pay for them.
March 14, 2026
The deepest safeguard against the machines is not a redesigned algorithm or a government consultation. At population level, it is children growing up in stable, committed families, with present and engaged parents who know what their child is watching, who talk to them about it, and who provide the emotional warmth that makes a young person less, not more, vulnerable to whatever the feed sends next. Marriage, the most stable foundation for family life the evidence consistently identifies, is not a peripheral variable in this debate. It is a central one.
March 14, 2026
D,
I agree that stable families are important.
However, politicians are not really able to promote this. At best they can avoid actively undermining it.
It reminds of another poster who longed for older values that, again, politicians cannot deliver.
March 14, 2026
Every once in a while JR produces an outstanding speech, this is one. Carefully structured, making useful points, un-partisan – by discussing child poverty and how it holds people back. A topic with which many who managed to climb out of reduced circumstances and succeed would agree
There are far too many poor people here. The government have been forced to roll out breakfast clubs in our schools for their children and there are a disgracefully large number of food banks. For these people, a rise in the cost of living can be catastrophic.
March 14, 2026
It is good to be in agreement for a change SG.
March 14, 2026
Not poor, relatively poor. A calculation that can never be eradicated.
March 14, 2026
Two-Tier wasn’t forced to roll out Breakfast Clubs. He chose to do it and he never stops bragging about levying punitive taxes on often low-wage workers in order to fund “free” food.
It is a parent’s responsibility to feed their child, not taxpayers. At best, the parents should be given a weekly voucher for a box of Weetabix!
March 14, 2026
Low standard of living is often directly due to low incomes. Why are incomes too low? – well business employment increasingly finds it too hard to generate profit, the means by which staff can be better rewarded. Ideally Minimum wage protection should not be needed in any society. So, what restricts a business in difficulty unable to produce improved profit? Sometimes it is having products falling out of demand, other times the direct costs other than staff costs( although levies on staff imposed by Governments is generally too great) become too high – energy cost being a very significant feature over perhaps the last 2 decades. Government should accept a duty to work towards easing this cost when in fact it has been working to increase not reduce.
March 14, 2026
It’s a shame that you failed to mention that importing poverty, in the form of unskilled 3rd world immigrants who have (at best) poor English and often a mother who will never be allowed to learn English, ensures that there will always be poverty and children who have few opportunities in life.
In the last 5 years, Governments have imported about 5 million of them.
When you are trying to empty a bath it’s a good idea to turn the taps off. The same applies to the elimination of poverty; stop adding to it first.
March 14, 2026
An excellent point Donna. I have an allied concern. Much has been written recently about the impact of AI on what might be described as ‘white collar’ jobs. Far less mention is made of the impact of Robotics on unskilled labour. This will (is?) initially impact areas such as warehousing (Amazon) and driving (Waymo & Tesla FSD) but humanoid robots are coming faster than people seem to realise. Adoption will not be linear as the learning models accumulate learned abilities very quickly as the installed population expands. I believe we are going to have a lot of unemployed (and unemployable) unskilled workers before too long. Another good reason to stop importing more.
March 14, 2026
Donna:
Correct.
March 14, 2026
I am not publishing your 2 submissions on the Dunblane massacre. I have researched the topic and found inaccuracies in your allegations. I suggest you take up the issues with those involved, or via your MP.
March 14, 2026
It’s actually reverse benefits which are also the problem. With a minimum wage job, single person no kids paying £1000 rent plus £1500 Council tax plus £1700 utilities plus costs of getting to work doesn’t work.
March 14, 2026
SJS,
Additionally there are many communities where unemployment has been entrenched for generations. Residents are very familiar with how the benefits system works.
A recent survey indicated GPs rarely refuse sick notes for mental health issues.
Collecting unemployment benefits used to carry a stigma in the days of full employment. That is no longer the case.
March 14, 2026
Indeed and the £1000 rent in LONDON is just a small room in a shared flat.
March 14, 2026
the bigger bolder strategy should include a return of grammar schools. entry should be purely on exam marks, the remaining grammar schools have uplifts in marks for allsorts of needy cases, these are bad. the 11 plus suffers state manipulation keeping many clever ordinary kids out.
we need to give all kids a chance, that means excluding disruptive kids, but we need specialist places to send the disruptive element to.
the norman lamont (Tebbitt Ed)to get on your bike and travel for work leaves many parents without a large family network to support them when they have kids. this is a massive problem, and more could be done to help such parents.
the sink schools and sink social housing estates just need shutting, the state should stop pouring vast amounts of money into them, just empower the individuals to move closer to jobs markets and better education opportunities.
a lot more power needs to be given to parents in the choice of schools etc.
and the kids in state care need far better care, take it out of council control, make it a national service, and in particular get staff empowered to stop rape gangs standing around outside.
March 14, 2026
Indeed all sensible stuff as usual:- “Paying extra benefits is not going to do it” indeed nor is minimum wage increases, nor more red tape employment laws, rip off net zero energy, the wars on cars, private schools, the self employed, landlords…
March 14, 2026
It’s too easy to cry “oh the children” and shovel more money at parents. By doing this we remove the incentive for parents to better themselves.
Housing support should not be determined by family size. A bedroom for the parents and a bedroom for the children. In a flat not a house. If girls need privacy they can change in the bathroom.
If families want more room they can pay for it themselves.
Child benefit should be universal and paid for all children in the country. It is after all merely the child’s tax free allowance made into cash.
Free school meals is a cop out. Parents can easily and cheaply provide a packed lunch.
By giving parents more money and removing some hardship from today’s children we are killing the entrepreneurial spirit from them and encouraging them to rely on the state.
Today’s children need to get up four hours before they went to bed and lick the shoebox clean.
But if you tell any of that to the MPs of today they won’t believe you.
March 14, 2026
An excellent speech, Sir John!
When my three children left university I told each of them that they were adults and needed to contribute to their upkeep. I told them they had a month to find work, and at the end of the second month I will expect some housekeeping, They all got them selves a job, and I charged them a small amount of housekeeping.
If I hadn’t done that, would they have stirred themselves to find work?
March 14, 2026
We are heading for even higher unemployment in the UK. The increase in energy costs will exacerbate this. Many of us have done jobs in our youth that we didn’t enjoy because there was no alternative. Today, the welfare system is too lax. It is far too easy to opt out of paid employment or choose to work part-time. The incapacity benefits are a joke. I’m all for supporting the severely disabled but the proliferation of so-called mental health issues is bankrupting this country. Rather than being the food bank for the rest of the World the Government needs to get tough. Deport all out of work foreign nationals and ban them from claiming UK benefits. Deport all illegals with failed asylum claims without giving them £40k. Force those of working age into employment. This Government is making the majority of people poorer so they can virtue signal about how they are supporting a few families who choose to have too many children they can’t afford to support. So called poverty can never be eradicated because of the way it is measured. You only have to look at the obesity levels, especially among the poorer in society to see they are getting plenty of food, just the wrong kind.
March 14, 2026
We are blessed as a nation. We have natural resources we can take advantage of to secure our wellbeing. We have farmlands that are very productive if we choose to deploy it for food production. We have an educated population blessed with climate conditions allowing those educated who wish to establish businesses to do so. We are surrounded by ocean giving us additional benefits of security and food supply.
We have all of these things plus an unending interest in science and technology.
With all of these things how is even possible we allow our political class to knowingly block access to all of our advantages as a nation, and to make matters even more dystopian the political class decide we need to increase the population by bringing impoverished foreign people without limit to come and share in our self imposed decline.
I could be wrong, but I think the problem we have is with our political thinkers. If we can return to sensible economic policies and secure employment opportunities without the overbearing state interference in commercial activities we might just manage to return to prosperity. The alternative is advancement towards increasing poverty which I think we all agree is not a desirable option.
Perhaps someone could inform Rachel and Keir, tell them to stop blocking our natural capacity for economic growth.
Reply I am trying to tell them how to get growth and use our obvious advantages.
March 15, 2026
The Globalists in the Establishment (most of them) wanted the UK in the EU and they want a One World Government.
They are deliberately stopping us from exploiting our resources (coal, oil, gas, farming, fishing etc) and making us completely dependent on imports because they want it to be impossible for the UK to be an independent, Sovereign, self-governing nation.
March 14, 2026
Why is Lord Courtenay, for example, being booted out of Lords? He was educated at Oxford/Cambridge and works as a barrister. Not saying he’s a Winston Churchill but nor is he a Bertie Wooster either (unlike in Labour – and Lib Dems and a sprinkling of in the other parties too).
March 14, 2026
One way to alleviate poverty is an abundance of job opportunities. We need an environment where industrious individuals can access the employment world easily. As it is, they are constrained by ever increasing regulations and taxes. What sane person would expand their business by employing someone?
Employee protection is good, so how about the state takes the risk for the small employer, rather than the employer if things don’t work out?
Maybe scrap the minimum wage law and allow employers to offer employment according to the value of the job. Employees could then seek a better wage with their current employer or find another job.
March 14, 2026
Fine words butter no parsnips. Your speech starts well with noble ambitions and soars into flights of optimistic expression. But then flutters back to our quotidian earth – ‘a bigger bolder strategy’ sounds a very fine thing – but what does that mean in concrete terms.
The loss of traditional industries is as inevitable as the sun rising and setting. Cheaper and easier elsewhere.
The puzzle is to dream up new industries that employ people and pay profits and taxes. There is the rub, science has produced very little that is useful and profitable these past 30 years. No Time Machines or Galactic Transporters. In education we could upgrade our state schooling to Eton standards – but what then. The Market will provide – only when it is profitable and not tiresome.
Locally, after much expensive squabbling a few dozen houses get built – and bought up by London Boroughs to ship out their unwanted. May I suggest we scrap local authority planning – if you can buy the land you can build on it becomes the mantra. Once again small scale builders are in with a chance. To make a difference slaughter a few holy cows. Electoral fallout? politicians are a dime a dozen.
Elsewhere I see DEFRA does hire young people – but makes them wait 5-8 months while ‘background checks’ are done. What kind of joke is this for such a threat to national security as inspecting owl boxes or whatever DEFRA does.
March 14, 2026
Socialism depends upon making and keeping people poor and we’ve had socialism for the last 3 decades or longer. Without a mandate we’ve had the mass immigration of the third world with one group wanting cheap labour and the other half wanting to turn us into the third world to destroy homogeneity and democracy. In addition both groups have readily supported the totally false CAGW hypothesis and implemented its crazy “solution” Net Zero which is unsustainable and hence is causing economic and national suicide. With these two policies it is not a surprise that we have family poverty. It’s the plan
March 14, 2026
The problem is much greater than socialism bad as that is.
March 14, 2026
I don’t think that there is anything in this speech that I would disagree with, the challenge is to put it into practise.
March 14, 2026
‘Poverty’? Meanwhile the State has taken from the Taxpayers money to fund those that want a two tier country. Want to live as under the Laws of a foreign land that they wanted to escape from, to have a Two Tier Society ‘The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) Trust’ A charity which funds the group behind the banned pro-Iran “hate march” has received at least £450,000 in donations.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/13/charity-behind-pro-iran-hate-march-450pounds-gift-aid/
irony, taxpayer-funded “donations”? – “Human Rights”?
One country, one nation – one Law
March 14, 2026
‘I say to the Government, given our shared ambitions to get more people out of poverty and give more encouragement to young people, that there are many other things than this Bill that they could or should be doing’
There are many thing the taxpayers money should be spent on. You don’t get a fairer society by pandering to minorities that above all believe they should be treated as somehow more ‘special’, more entitled, than others.
Singling out the noise makers for special treatment, suggests they are special – then they want ‘more’.
According to mythology their was a time in Britain, when every one was equal. Equal in life, allowed to reach their potential. Equal under the Law. When ‘Human Rights’ were equal. Not having money doesn’t make you poor or under privileged, its giving more rights to others, treating others as ‘special’ that impoverishes the majority.
There was a time in history that we had a real ‘conservative movement’ people were released, were free, could have minds of their own, but above all people were allowed to reach their full potential. It was not a hard political extremest movement, it understood free individuals could achieve great things, that benefited all individuals, when they didn’t have their hands tied behind their backs forced to be slaves to the tax man for some one else’s political ego and ‘wet…. ‘ Until of course the movement was crushed by the left infiltrating its ranks, talked ‘one nation’ but didn’t know what it meant and still doesn’t understand. The central command of the centre knows best of the last 30years killed aspiration, it has killed equality of ambition, killed growth from the belief that only ‘muppets’ can rule, and only ‘muppets’ that want a one size fits all regime can succeed. Then they prove it cant, and keep bringing it back
March 14, 2026
Lord Redwood
A good speech, spoken by a believer in Conservatism, an era now banished.
Then you ended with ‘The Government must think of a much bigger, bolder strategy. Paying extra benefits is not going to do it’.
Government must think? The UK Parliament has shown, and still shows it cant think. Parliament and its Government must learn how to ‘but out’ stop clinging onto the Napoleon led laws and rules inspired by that dictator, that they have been disciplined into believing as the only way for the last 50 years or so by their foreign masters.
Central Government is not central command, central command to embed the laws and rules of their Foreign masters. It is there to release and create freedoms for others to excel and reach potential so they can create the wealth needed to fund all our futures. Parliament is hampered and restricted by political religion, a religion focused on Metro Left London that doesn’t exist outside of the once fine City. The rest of the Country its real people released from these bizarre religious doctrines would florist, would get on with the work needed without this interference
March 14, 2026
The social problems we face today are largely the result of two factors: I) immigration bringing into the country individuals – and their families – who do not speak our language or accept our principles, culture or moral precepts; ii) an existing population much of which is poorly educated, unsocialised and incapable of managing their lives and affairs responsibly. Until these issues are addressed robustly, there is no hope of improvement.
March 14, 2026
Looking around the world, it appears that governments are better at creating poverty than they are at alleviating it.
March 14, 2026
Of course raising the next generation, identifying the gifted regardless of their circumstances and giving all children the opportunity to make the best of their lives, it the crucial responsibility of every generation.
Fail once and the nation is gone.
We need to prioritise OUR OWN CHILDREN above all else.
We certainly have much to repent of, because no nation that allows its tiny children to be sexually terrorised over decades by an invading alien force should be able to look itself in the mirror.
Enough!
We need a radical turning point in order to survive.
March 14, 2026
Off topic, re the survival of hereditary peers, it is a shame what is being done to the wise governance of this Sceptred Isle by the lefty wreckers. As we have opportunity, let us ‘be watchful, and strengthen that which remains’ (Revelation 3:2a).
March 14, 2026
Off topic, re the survival of hereditary peers, it is a shame what is being done to the wise governance of this Sceptred Isle by the lefty wreckers. As we have opportunity, let us ‘be watchful, and strengthen that which remains’ (Revelation 3:2a). (The second part of the verse is sobering, and potentially, a blessed hope!)
March 14, 2026
The social problems we face today are largely the result of two factors: I) immigration bringing into the country individuals – and their families – who do not speak our language or accept our principles, culture or moral precepts; ii) an existing population much of which is poorly educated, unsocialised and incapable of managing their lives and affairs responsibly. Until these issues are addressed robustly, there is no hope of improvement.
March 14, 2026
The first leads inevitably to the second.
Our children have been denied an education as the teachers have had to concentrate on the imported battlers.
March 15, 2026
The Conservatives set up a charity called ‘Migrant Help’. It holds a £235 million Home Office contract running to 2029, and is the sole official provider of advice and support for people seeking asylum.
Migrant Help accounts for roughly 23% of the Charity sector’s income, almost all of it from the state.
So the government funds a Charity which campaigns against government immigration policy, and ensures that one sector of the population suffers less ‘family poverty’ than any other, at the cost of ‘family poverty’ in all the others.