Reform UK has been labeled racist for arguing that the two-child benefit cap should only be lifted for families where both parents are British and in full-time work.
Sian Berry, the Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, told MPs she wanted to “utterly reject the racist agenda of the Reform members’ objections”.
Labour MP for Peterborough Andrew Pakes called the policy “naked racism” and “an affront to British values”.
Meanwhile, Conservative former minister Kit Malthouse said Reform is calling for “open discrimination” and said the policy would affect his own children, and the children of sitting Reform MPs.
He said: “There is something grotesque about seeking legislation which seeks to downgrade the citizenship of your own children.”
However, a Reform spokesperson said that the policy has “nothing to do with race” and that MPs are “wilfully misrepresenting the policy”.
Reform MP Sarah Pochin backed her party’s policy, arguing that removing the two-child benefit cap entirely rewards those who “play the system”.
She told MPs that birth rates are higher among foreign nationals, so Labour’s policy will mean a “significant amount of this additional expenditure” will go to households where at least one parent is born outside the UK.
The Runcorn and Helsby MP said: “Scrapping the two-child benefit limit does nothing to help hard-working parents who set their alarm clocks every morning and does everything to encourage families already on benefits to have more children in the full knowledge that the state will pay for them.
“Removing the two-child benefit cap without imposing any other restrictions, such as limiting it to working families with British-born parents, fails to incentivise work.
“It increases the support to non-working families beyond that given to working parents earning above the benefit level.
“So those who work are being punished, while those who play the system are rewarded.”
She added: “Due to higher birth rates amongst foreign nationals, a significant amount of this additional expenditure is expected to go to households where at least one parent is born outside the UK.
“Reform will only lift the cap for British families where both parents are in full-time work.”
Reform MP Lee Anderson (Ashfield) added that “British people should be put first”.
Mr Malthouse, who served as education secretary under Liz Truss, accused Reform of “calling for open discrimination in our welfare system against those who do not have entirely or parents who were born entirely in this country”.
He told MPs: “I declare an interest that includes my children, two of my children not born to a British citizen. It also includes the children of Members of Parliament who sit for the Reform Party.
“And there is something grotesque about seeking legislation which seeks to downgrade the citizenship of your own children.”
However, he also criticised the Government for its policy of removing the two-child benefit cap entirely, claiming that it “treats children as a burden somehow to be mitigated, rather than treating them as a bonus to be encouraged”.
Mr Malthouse said: “On this side of the House, we would much rather there were work incentives that came alongside children.
“When I was briefly secretary of state for education, I was inundated with correspondence and approaches from lots of highly productive and ambitious women who wanted assistance within work.
“They wanted some kind of bonus, relief, some kind of package to encourage them to have children, rather than see children as part of some kind of safety net where women have to be rescued if they have children.”
He argued that the country “needs more children” and so he hopes for the mentality to shift from mitigation to encouragement.
The Tory MP added that there is a “massive demographic steam train that’s coming down the tunnel towards us”, noting estimates that suggest there will be two working people to every pensioner by 2050.
He asked: “How are we going to pay for all of this in the future? How are we going to fund it all without enormous debt?”
Former Labour shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, later branded Ms Pochin’s views as “racist”, while Sam Rushworth, Labour MP for Bishop Auckland, said he was “deeply offended” by the comments.
Mr Rushworth said: “My wife was not born in this country, she came here as a teenager, she worked in a meat factory, went through university and now works as a midwife in our NHS.
“The idea that somehow she should be less entitled because of her birth, I find, frankly, disgusting.”
A spokesperson for Reform UK said: “Our policy has nothing to do with race.
“The MPs making these comments are wilfully misrepresenting the policy.
“Reform UK’s policy on the two-child cap applies to British couples who are both in full-time work, whether that be by birth or naturalisation.”