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

i doubt labour will ever be voted in again, declaring this the same week as tax rises will piss a lot of people off, especially with the current public opinion on immigration when most big families are from other countries.
I think a two child cap is reasonable and I say that as someone who was on benefits for years and had a child at 16 (so a complete scrounger 🤣) once or twice fair enough but how did you not learn your lesson the third time??

Most of the comments are so out of touch. Heard several comments referencing Harry Enfield's sketches depicting poverty and "poverty behaviour". You genuinely seem to have no idea what life is like for most working people who haven't managed to get to into a high wage job. Everything costs more and more, for basic essentials, and the birth rate keeps declining. Saying no to raising 600k+ children out of Poverty because you have an extremely outdated view of their parents being lazy is horrible and you should all feel shame. I'd rather live with the idea of my taxes going towards children (even if some fringe parents will inevitably spend it incorrectly), than on funding war across the globe, protecting paedophiles, our ridiculous defence budget and then bailing out water companies that rip us off, to name a few.

Lol. If the Government had any interest in the living standards of people living in the UK then they wouldn’t be crushing any prospect of productivity growth with pretty much every single policy they implement given that productivity rises are the only way to raise living standards sustainably.

The Venn diagram of people who want to keep the two child cap as a means of stopping poor people from having children and people who are anti-immigration is a near perfect circle. So just who do you want to pay your pension when the time comes?

@Marshmallow4545 What makes you think people would be interested in health and nutrition advice from volunteers?

What about a proper drop in with professionals like a health visitor / nutritionist / dietitian / community nursery nurse etc? Then at least some effort and thought has been put in to it? Maybe those sorts of things existed in the old Sure Start centres, I dunno.

I think this is a reflection of the general attitude on this thread, and more widely, that being poor is some sort of character deficit that can be punished out of people.

Such a lovely comment, and my thoughts too. And most of those receiving the money are also very hard working people, who just happen to be in minimum wage jobs rather than higher paying careers.

and needlessly traumatises a child for life by ripping them away from their parents. There's a reason why children are only taken away from their parents as a last resort.

It also isn't going to save any money.

Actually it’s not sufficient for replacement level population, obviously.

That’s why the policy I suggested above which recognises the costs of raising dependents for all families while also incentivising rather than disincentivising work is a better solution, and is the kind of approach adopted in most other European countries.

Nobody bothered to respond to that post though, they’re too busy having ideological scraps to engage with evidence-based policy solutions that have been shown to work.

This.

I don’t think a lot of Mumsnetters realise just how much we provide for free as a country - even if you have never worked a day in your life you will receive:
Free and unlimited medical care
An adequate roof over your head
Money for food
Free education for your children
Free school meals for the children
Free parks, libraries and other facilities
Free emergency services you can call anytime you need them

People also forget it is now very easy to access cheap or free items if you need them - Marketplace and Vinted didn’t exist when I was a kid, there was a primitive form of EBay but if your child needed new shoes, you had to go to the shop and buy them new, or otherwise trawl charity shops in the hope of finding something (unlikely), and probably buy a bus ticket in order to do that anyway. It’s never been easier to clothe your kids and furnish your house cheaply.

Also, and I know people will object to me adding this, but I can’t think of any families who are the type this benefit is targeting (skint and too many children) who aren’t already heavily topped up by UC, DLA and PIP. People with lots of children, where there is a diagnosis in the mix (and there is more often than not), can easily receive more in benefits than a person working full time for an average wage.

So no - I don’t think the taxpayer should be funding this.

And the fact that the removed child is absolutely traumatised is what, just unfortunate collateral damage?

It doesn't encourage people to have more children, there is no evidence of that at all.

It tallies with YouGov on this too. I expect dissatisfaction will increase if coupled with more tax hikes.

I don’t think Starmer is thinking of the electorate, more keeping backbenchers happy so they don’t oust him.

What he actually said was that labour wouldn't make unfunded promises in their manifesto (I.e. the promise to remove the cap). He identified the cap as one of the areas where Labour might have to make tough decisions, by keeping it place. He made no pledge to lift the cap. This is not the same as a manifesto pledge to keep it, no matter what you say.

Just in case this isn't clear to you, where a party doesn't make a specific pledge in their manifesto, it is not the case that there is an implied promise to do the opposite.

I'm not even a labour voter FFS, I'm a member of a different party altogether, but the ignorance or sheer dishonesty on this thread is infuriating.

So in both cases the child still exists but in the second case the parent experiences the effect of irresponsibility and not financially planning and/or family planning

Day off?

Child allowance for large families can seem attractive to people who are poor but long-term it makes the problem worse as it encourages the poorest to have more children than they otherwise would.

Children from large families are more vulnerable at every level and have less opportunities due to less resources and parental time/support.

Also, it facilitates some fathers not providing for their family as much as they should - my own father deducted the amount of child-allowance my mother got from what he handed to her each week and spent it on himself instead.

Many men keep women "busy" with lots of children as a means of controlling them. This happens far more than the other way round but is rarely commented on.

I do support child allowance for up to 2 children as parents need support but not encouragement to have more children than they can afford or support emotionally, educationally, etc.

and what would that do, exactly?

Children in foster care cost money too.

Government seems to be about taking people's own money off them at the moment. What next, selling their own home to fund their care in old age....oh, wait..!

I don’t think public opinion should prevent whatever government of the day doing something that is morally right. The Labour Party have a long history of working to end child poverty. (Gordon Brown and Sure Start for example) The U.K. voted Labour in. If we are all for taking personal responsibility then this is what we voted for : an end to austerity.

Government is about society.

I mean someone has to. You need a bit of it to prevent moral hazard and people expecting the taxpayer to fund their kids.

You could also take their children away.

Allowing children to live in poverty because it doesn't directly benefit me - Horrendous.

I know - expecting random strangers to pay for other people's lifestyle choices. Horrific.

Labour don’t care about any of that though, Reeves is just trying to appease those pesky backbenchers.

This thread is absolutely horrendous.