Do you think we should life the two child benefit cap?

Lol, the days of 9-5 Mon to Fri are lonnnnnng gone.

Oh sorry, I thought all the people on this thread who don't want the cap lifted are employed and must have jobs where posting on forums all morning is acceptable.

School meals in the vast majority of schools are now booked online there is no way of anyone knowing who gets them even the dinner ladies and teachers will not know. My oldest dc is almost 10 and has absolutely no idea I don’t pay for his meals. I’m pretty sure most secondary schools have a fingerprint system now too. The stigma thing is way in the past

I'm not sure about the benefit gap but something needs to be done about lack of education and employment amongst some families. I think benefits should come with a caveat for self-improvement.

Of course the cap should be lifted. Practically no one is having more than 2 children anyway. Most women are having 0, 1 or 2.

If people limited themselves to having the kids they could definitely, in all circumstances, "afford", kids would become vanishingly rare.

It’s not about those not needing them not being funded by the tax payer though. What the tax payer would actually be funding with the provision of free school meals for all is destigmatisation of free school meals for those who really need them. That’s the ‘cost’ and I think it’s worth it. Working in schools, the challenge around getting some parents of those entitled to free school meals to sign their children up to them because of perceived stigma is quite significant, and results in children who really need them going hungry. (And to pre-empt anyone who might say that that’s on the parents, children should never be disadvantaged by their parents’ choices when it comes to fundamental provisions like food.)

Are you on annual leave today?

I base my opinion on my own family circumstances and that of many other large families I grew up with. My father was not out of the ordinary in a working-class area - it was common practice for fathers to deduct child allowance from what they handed up to their wives, yet this is rarely mentioned/acknowledged.

Two parents can provide for two children far better and far more easily than for 3 or more in terms of emotional support alone. The more children there are, the less support each child receives in terms of resources but also in terms of emotional support, educational support etc.

I believe it is better to provide vulnerable women with other forms of support (state-funded creches / free contraception / etc) than additional child-allowance.

Poor and feckless are not synonyms. I know plenty of feckless middle class parents who hide their fecklessness behind a veneer of acceptability.

I find the idea of vast unemployment in twenty odd years concerning enough. Just look at how many jobs can be replaced.

It will happen regardless, but I think policy now should try to envisage the changes incoming.

But they will still be in poverty - feckless parents will see to that, they're the ones who get the money.

A poor but decent parent would go hungry to feed their children the best food they can, wear old clothes clothes to ensure their kids get the best clothes they can. They might not be able to afford books but they'll take their children to the library etc. Feckless parents will get an XL Bully and head to the offy.

Yep it’s madness to put in policy now without thinking it through.

I was being facetious but the reality is that unless today's workers want a total collapse in their pension funds in 20 years time we do need more people, either being born in the UK or arriving her by immigration. Those who want neither seem to have no clear vision of the alternative. But an ageing population with an inadequate birth rate is no joke, and should scare people a lot more than the prospect of impoverished families getting an extra couple of thousand quid a year.

I don’t think posters like that get that ai is going to replace millions of office type jobs meaning all those people will have no choice to get jobs in care homes etc

Always the ‘bum wiping’, yeh we don’t need to increase dc today for that.

It will replace a lot of other things and then it will be a rat race to get a job like bum wiping to avoid being unemployed

I think many working parents are struggling too now and there are families receiving the same amount of money in benefits which include free dental care, poll tax reduction, free meals and other reductions because they receive some form of benefit . I wonder if everyone was taxed the same on the total income would it be fairer? I honestly don’t know .

AI won't be wiping bums in care homes for one thing.

I usually lean to the right on these issues - was in favour of the benefit reform they backed down on but I do think that this policy needs to be scrapped. Long term the impacts of keeping children in poverty will cost the UK so much more.

In twenty odd years when the dc born today enter the workforce? Be careful you don’t have vast numbers of unemployed wondering what to do as AI does so much.