TOM HAYES: My mum messages whenever I speak about poverty - it stays with you forever

TOM HAYES: My mum messages whenever I speak about poverty - it stays with you foreverLabour MP Tom Hayes writes for The Mirror about the importance of scrapping the two-child benefit limit - saying it undoes 'the uncaring right-wing politics of my childhood'CommentsNewsopinionTom Hayes, Labour MP for Bournemouth East00:01, 06 Apr 2026View 2 ImagesLabour MP Tom Hayes has said the two-child limit sent the message that come children mattered lessWhen I speak about child poverty, I’m not talking in abstract terms.‌I’m thinking about my mum. About the quiet guilt she still carries. About how poverty seeps into how you see yourself, not just how you live.‌I think about the messages she sends while watching me speak about poverty in Parliament- the apologies she offers, as if any of it were her fault, when in truth the blame belongs to the uncaring right-wing politics of my childhood.‌That’s what Conservatives and Reform don’t understand. Poverty isn’t just about what’s in your bank account. It’s about the shame, the stigma, and the sense that you’re somehow to blame. It stays with you forever.And for years, government policy made that worse. The two-child limit didn’t just cut support. It sent a message. That some children count less. That some families are on their own.READ MORE: Top Tory blasted for flogging tickets to constituents who want to meet himREAD MORE: Female teachers face sickening misogyny as 'manosphere' creates 'ticking time bomb'View 2 ImagesChancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves announced the two-child limit would be lifted in her last Budget(Image: Getty Images)‌From today, that changes. Labour’s decision to scrap the limit will lift nearly half a million children out of poverty. 3,000 kids in Bournemouth will be taken out of poverty. Most of them are in working families. Parents doing exactly what they’re told is the right thing, but still being held back by a system that wasn’t built for them.This is what real action o...