How would you tackle child poverty and improve outcomes?

I'm a conservative.. proud of it

Cop out - quelle surprise! 😆

You've said enough to expose yourself as a conservative. I'm not playing attention seeking games with you. Shoo.

They cant find work where they live. I could leave my job tomorrow and find another one. Not the case when all the hospitals that used to provide maternity care in your county have been reduced to one or two.

Many of the people I studied with cannot afford to live in or near London..

Still waiting for you to address my ‘conservative views’.

You can’t, though, can you? You don’t really understand much about politics.

The NHS was set up to provide basic health care, free specs and dentures. It was never set up to deal with the complex issues of addiction and MH. I don’t believe it can ever do these things.

Addiction and MH are totally open-ended problems. Who ever said “Ta very much - that’s my 6 NHS counselling sessions - I’m sorted! Bye!” No-one ever.

Sometimes problems don’t have solutions.

Loads of people work hard and aren't rich.

I'm more about carrot than stick, so would stop means-testing everything, so that people could save or work towards a step up (promotion, pay rise, pension fund or whatever) without losing money that is free to those who neither save nor work.

I agree about increasing MW and stopping top ups. I'd make child benefit universal, but only for households with both parents working at least 20 hours a week each, unless there is good reason why they can't, such as disability, caring responsibilities or studying. Ditto nursery provision.

I would stop Right To Buy immediately, and offer incentives to people selling rentals to local authorities to increase the numbers of council houses. I would also increase taxes on private rents and ring-fence the proceeds for more LA house building, so that ultimately there would be enough to make them available to all who want them. No fixed tenancies, no ghettos and fair rents.

Rather than fining parents who take children on holiday in school time, I'd have heavily subsidised residential trips for children who attend regularly. Also school lotteries with tickets going in a 'hat' for every full week/month/term of attendance, and a decent prize that children really want (not a dictionary or pencil case 😀). Tickets could also be awarded in the same way as house points, for good behaviour and other achievements.

I also approve of free school meals for all - not means-tested, very little choice, and all healthy. Probably vegetarian, so all religious groups can eat the same things. I wouldn't allow packed lunches other than for those on special diets with some sort of proof of reason, and would give out recipe cards (or online versions) so that parents and older children could make the meals at home.

I agree with:

reopen and properly find surestart centres
free school meals for all families claiming universal credit
better cms system with strong, legal sanctions for parents who don’t support their kids when they are able to.
Raise income tax threshold

Id also add change school hours from year 1 upwards to 8.30 - 5.30 as the standard, with the extra time focused on sports, crafts, languages , projects etc. Free for parents on universal credit, a small charge for working parents to cover the additional provision. Fund schools sufficiently to make this happen without placing more workload onto teachers.

So what do you suggest? Everyone owns the exact same share of ‘wealth’ so nobody has any?!

You don't know why 1% of UK population owning 70% of wealth is a problem and you don't see how that relates to increasing poverty?

Many ways:

- concentrated wealth equates to unequal political influence, resulting in policies that favour the rich and weaken the living standards of those on low incomes
-wealth concentrated on property, shares and financial assets drove up their prices,along housing inaccessible to those without assets and trapping them in dire, insecure rentals.

• far from creating jobs, the very wealthy are so due to passive gains and rents rather than productive wages meaning the wealth remains at the top of the triangle and doesn't help to lift people out of poverty.

What so all places are going to let you use vouchers?
The shops that are a short distance away? So I do not need transport because you know I will need money for transport.

Tell you what the £83 a week I get and the little top up of UC I'll give up and put my child into supportive living.
Which would cost the tax payer way more money then they give me!!!!

So no I don't have many luxurys as it is, my child will always come first!
But I do not agree with vouchers!

This.

Why is it penalising you if you have £50 vouchers to spend on food, rather than £50 cash?

If every person could stay in the family sized home for the rest of their lives, the cost of building new council homes to accommodate those needing to move up from smaller to larger homes would be phenomenal and prohibitive. The cost of building, maintaining and improving council homes is enormous, and far outweighs the capped rents which apply to tenants.

Somebody paying council rent is already having their living costs subsidised; the number of people actually paying their own rent for the full duration of their tenancy would be vanishingly small; the majority of council tenants are on some form of benefits and handing them a guaranteed home with no requirement to pay for it, or its upkeep and maintenance, would further encourage that. It's one of the reasons RTB was such a roaring success; people were able to have a stake in their own home. The way it was administered leaves a lot to be desired; the discounts could have been smaller and profits should have been reinvested in building new council homes, but the idea behind it was solid.

Same as DH and myself. We own a few flats abroad and rent it out. We'll retire in that country and live off all that money we've saved.

There are nearly one hundred midwifery related vacancies on NHSJobs.com, and hundreds of B5 nursing jobs advertised. The NHS is desperately short of staff, and I find it incredible that your friends/neighbours/acquaintances with medical qualifications cannot find work.

Bloodyhell here we go again, people on UC unless disabled or are a carer HAVE TO FIND WORK if in a couple one of them have to work a certain amount of hours to make up UCs criteria for that wage.
And the other person has to work a certain amount of hours when there children are aged 3 and above.
So unless they are having children every few years until pension age (very unlikely)they will be sanctioned and there UC taken away!!

Also vouchers, my husband works full time, I am a carer to a child who has complex needs.
1 to 1 at school (they are part time as well).
We do get a top up of UC because of my child, why should I be penalised with having to use vouchers!

And the people that are saying it would stop parents abusing money, it won't!
The parents that put their children first will do regardless.
The parents that don't will sell there vouchers (for less) regardless.

Unfortunately there is no helping a very small amount of parents no matter what help and support you give them.
And it's these children that need the most if not the cycle continues.

But I do agree sure start was beneficial to a lot of parents and it had no stigma to it.
People were accepted and supported no matter who you were.

There is no village anymore, no support systems in place any more.

Of the nearly 7m people claiming UC, approx 37% are in work - the percentage gets lower (to around 30%) the further north you go. So not "most", by a long shot.

"There isn’t really a way of doing that any differently unless you have the childcare provider billing the government 85% and then the parent the other 15% but that’s more admin for everyone involved and the more admin there is the more staff are required to do it."

There's a far easier way; childcare provider prepares bill (showing 85/15 or whatever split) and agrees it with parent. Childcare provider sends bill to government; government pays full bill and reclaims 15% from parent via tax. Childcare provider gets paid promptly. Government can garnishee wages/tax/benefits of absent parent if necessary.

The problem is that you are confusing needs with wants. Needs are sufficient shelter, food and water, and heating.

It should be far more shameful or stigmatising to not feed your children than to use vouchers to feed them.

If you can't afford chocolate after you've bought food then you can't afford chocolate.

You'd have more to pay for your travel if you had vouchers for food.

Neglect by parents with money is not the issue here, poverty is. There are plenty of parents in poverty who do not neglect their children, but also plenty who do, and the money is largely irrelevant. Crap parents will be crap parents, no matter how much money you waste on them.

Countries with the worst child poverty and highest birth rates, combined with little welfare support tend to be developing countries, where women have little say in whether or not they have sex or continue pregnancies - once again, men are generally the problem.

Increasing the availability of contraception has shown demonstrable reduction in child poverty, but this applies less in developed nations where contraception is generally easy to obtain, because people then make the choice to continue to have children as somebody else will pay and they won't die.

I'm a private landlord. Myself and DH worked hard to buy our own home and now have a rental property too. The rental will help pay for our teenagers further education, deposits on homes and money for old age and inheritance for our children.

Why should I be penalised for actually working hard, making good financial decisions and thinking about my children's future.

I have seen cases of families " crying poverty" but the real ones are few and far between.

I would make it illegal to own more than three properties.

One of the reasons why there is a housing shortage is because there are areas where one person owns 30 or 40 or even more houses, meaning that there are none, and that person essentially sets the rent and conditions for living in that particular area.

Also the fact that the houses are bought up by a couple of people means that house prices are higher because there are less of them available.

Make it illegal to own more than three properties and those other properties would have to be sold, meaning that there would be more on the market, the prices would drop, more people could afford to buy them, and we all know that the cost of a mortgage is less than it costs to rent.

How does wealth inequality relate in any way to poverty? The wealthy are not taking money forcibly from poor people. They are not claiming benefits, not draining services (often the opposite) and are often providing employment for others. How would poor people be better off if we had fewer millionaires, other than by reducing the number of millionaires by taking their money?