People on benefits should not be allowed or encouraged to have more than two children, a Conservative MP has suggested.
Pauline Latham, MP for Mid Derbyshire, told the Commons that workers who do not receive tax credits, and have the number of children they can afford, should not be subsidising other people to have more children.
She claimed Eilidh Whiteford, the SNP’s welfare spokeswoman, had used her response to the Budget to support a “completely mad” system in which people on benefits would be allowed to have three, four or five children at the expense of “responsible” people who do not receive welfare.
But Ms Whiteford disagreed with the Tory MP’s interpretation of her speech, adding she had been misrepresented.
The Government has proposed limiting tax credits to two children from April 2017.
Speaking during the Budget debate, Ms Latham said: “I found it astonishing that (Ms Whiteford) should be advocating that people on benefits should be allowed to have, and encouraged to have, more than two children whereas people who are completely responsible, and recognise that children are expensive to bring up, who can’t afford to bring them up because they’re not on benefits, are choosing to subsidise those that she would like to see have three, four, five children, which is completely mad.”
Ms Whiteford replied: “I have to say to you I think you misrepresent what I actually said and what the record will show I said.
“I think the point I was really trying to make was that half of all families in Scotland receive tax credits and a huge majority of the people receiving them are in work, people who work extremely hard.”
Ms Latham added to Ms Whiteford: “I recognise what you say, that most of the people getting tax credits are in work, but I still do not believe that people who are in work, who are not receiving tax credits, who are acting responsibly and having the number of children they can afford to keep, should be subsiding those to have more children.
“I just think that that is completely topsy-turvy economics. It may be the way some of the members opposite in Scotland deal with economics but I don’t think it’s what we want to do here in London.
“I’m very disappointed by your attitude to that and I feel you have completely misrepresented what we’re doing, this Government is doing.”