How would you tackle child poverty and improve outcomes?

I think your grip on reality is extremely weak.

I will never own a house either as I will never be able to afford one. There are many people in the same situation.

But that’s the point, we have the equivalent of the entire population of Scotland - ever last man, woman and child - on disability benefits. As I said I often have to listen to people’s financial circumstances at work, and it’s only a minority that only claim UC and don’t get PIP or DLA or several helpings of both.

Offer money to those on benefits that have one child or more to get implanted long term contraception or sterilisation (yes, even the men).
Make absent parents pay for their children. If they claim they cant afford it then they can either go to prison or clean the streets in exchange for the gov paying for their children.

I think the only way to do this, barring vouchers which I accept can be problematic, is to take money from parents and put it into services for children. So, for instance, scrapping child benefit for school age children and putting the money towards free / subsidised uniform, extending free school meals, holiday and after-school clubs with food provided etc

A lot of the men are on benefits!

Why does this never occur to people? If mum is on benefits it’s quite likely the (often even more useless) dad is as well

Those are made up goady posts. Maximum UC for a couple with children is c.£1800 pm.

Anyone getting more is receiving non-means tested benefits, probably disability benefits too.

No idea. But I dint agree with a nanny state. People must take responsibility. And quite often people in real need dont get help because there are too many scroungers.

I would also enforce the CMS taking of passports and cars/other assets for men who haven't paid for their children in 6 months or more.
Make them pay for their kids over the state and make it not be an easy option to just go self-employed to hide earnings both from the tax man and their own kids.

No you are the one who is disillusioned, there doesn’t need to be that many of them for it to make a massive difference. I’m not talking about hard working drs and layers they are not super rich. There is a much bigger picture where they are getting richer and richer as normal wages are worth less and less.

Change CMS so it covers 50% of the costs of raising a child, including childcare and then rigorously enforce the paying for it, with prison time if necessary. So may kids in poverty live in a single parent household and the other one being forced to actually contribute should do wonders to reduce that.

If we had infinite money I'd change the school system totally.
Fund them similarly to private - same amounts I mean - for smaller class sizes, more SEN support, more green spaces, more options of study, more teachers who actually did the topic at degree, nicer food and more choice, better sports facilities and a slightly longer school day so that parent's don't have to leave work early. This could incorporate homework and clubs, just like they do at private schools. Suddenly every kid would have done some homework, possibly have a hobby and mum's don't earn less because of the secret child tax of having to leave early to be with the kids making them overlooked for promotion no longer applies.

Education, Health and Social Care actually working together.

To the person who said ‘no benefit cap’ are you for real?! We already have posters on here almost flaunting the fact they get more benefits than a full time wage (and in some cases, 40k+) and yet you don’t want to cap it? I think there would be riots!

A minimum amount should be calculated as “cost to raise a child”. The non-resident parent should be expected to cover their proportion of this. If they are unable to, the government pays it, and it accumulates as a loan which affects credit ratings more heavily than other loans - for example, credit cards, mortgages and car finance would be refused. Only those with a disability that prevents them from working would be exempt from repaying the loan.

Companies should be prevented from paying wages where the highest wage is more than a set multiple of the lowest wage. The highest salary can’t be increased beyond that hourly rate multiplied by full time hours (e.g 40 hours per week). The multiple could be higher for small companies, reduced for medium and again for large companies, to help owner managed businesses get started.

Dividends should be banned for medium and large companies any of their staff are paid below a set living wage (an actual living wage, not minimum wage which was renamed).

Once the right people are fairly paying their share, the government can look at stepping in to provide support where it’s needed, instead of taking on the role of absent fathers or companies who pay the CEO or shareholders before their staff

I think the really challenging issue is getting spending to needy children and teenagers - not just giving it to hopeless, deadbeat parents to spend on themselves. How do you accomplish that?

i think vouchers are one possibility (but not foolproof, as mentioned above with the mother selling them for her own benefit) and definitely prioritise youth services. Youth clubs etc are always money well spent-spent.

• increase school funding massively, pay rises for teachers and nursery staff, investment and subsidies into training

Now these are good ideas!

Well spotted! Clever you. 👏

I would limit benefits, and replace with
a voucher system for school Uniforms , sports wear and appropriate clothing
vouchers for food
a pass system for free/ reduced access for low income kids to leisure activities, sports, cinema etc
re invest in youth services and clubs

It’s almost funny - the people who chew their little pencils thinking up lists of lovely free things from the fairies without any knowledge or idea of how to cost them.

Bless.

Just pointing out the policies are idealistic and far fetched. I think the welfare state should exist but only for the truely needed. Should be limited so that it's a last resort.

And how do you propose to keep hard -working taxpayers’ noses to the grindstone paying for all this free stuff? Guns? Tanks?

No -they’ll just bugger off.

And I hate to disillusion you, but there just aren’t that many ‘super-rich’.

What there are plenty of are hard-working, law-abiding, responsible middle and working class people who are always in any government’s sights when it comes to tax-grabs. And they can only be pushed so far before resentment kicks in.