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

Labour did not promise to keep the two child cap in place in their manifesto. Continually repeating this lie doesn't make it true.

Removal of the cap wasn't included as a specific manifesto pledge, but that does not mean they promised to keep it. In fact for years Starmer has been talking about his commitment to reducing child poverty. Removing the cap is, according to all experts views, the quickest and most cost effective way to do so.

The only people with absolutely no control over family finances are the children. I can’t see a solid argument for forcing them to live below the poverty line to punish the adults in their lives.

Yes the cap should remain

Also, the argument about them being future tax payers does not necessarily follow - there are millions out of work for no good reason.

There is no way to ensure that additional child support would be spent on those children anyway.

If Reeves puts up income tax, millions of people will have to make cut backs to their own lifestyle. She can't then use their money to pay for other people's children. It literally makes no sense.

Well we need significantly more future tax payers, so that would still be a net positive.

Unless people would prefer high migration as an alternative, but as of late they seem to not want that either.

Yep lift the cap. The birth rate has hugely declined all over the world, absolutely no evidence a cap stops people having children, they’re just having less naturally. I don’t believe many people went out of their way to procreate lots for more benefits, it was just a media frenzy in the 00s to divide people as per. Benefits are so low anyway, I don’t think many people really want to live on them. People act like they’re practically millionaires when it’s like £300 a week max.

Also just don’t think children should ever be punished. They didn’t ask to be born, they deserve to be fed, safe, clothed and all the rest.

I wish the government would invest time and money having proper sanctions on dead beat dads (it's usually dads) and forcing them to properly pay for their kids. Benefits payments to children should be higher, but this money should be collected from the absent parent, perhaps via HMRC then paid out to the mother. Any benefits payments should not be dependent on the dad paying (as they're too unreliable) but money should be aggressively removed with proper sanctions from the absent dad.

I agree, having children is a choice. How can they consider lifting it whilst at the same time constantly trying to target the disabled?
I have M.S, I didn’t have a choice.

We only had one child, we couldn’t really afford to have more so we’re happy with our choice and haven’t been a burden on the state. If people want more than two crack on, but don’t rely on taxpayers to foot the bill for them all.

The birth rate might be declining but high levels of immigration are increasing the population year on year.
i don’t think we should be encouraging people to have more children .

There are absolutely poor families that put their children first though too. The difference between the ones that don't and the ones that do isn't money. It's often attitude and education. I have seen some parents make unbelievable sacrifices for their children. Sadly I have also though seen parents living in so called poverty being unbelievably selfish.

This is exactly the point I was trying to make when I spoke of disadvantage being a state of mind and sub-culture, not just about money.

There are first generation immigrants who had very little but encouraged their children to study hard and supported them. Many of those second generation children end up doing very well for themselves.

My mother's family (British) were quite poor, but my grandparents encouraged their children and gave them strong moral and work ethic - they've all done OK in life and furthermore, encouraged their own children to do better.

I

Yes, well they all promise earth before they're elected, dont they? All elected government's do this. Did anyone actually believe that Labour government would not raise taxes?

What are the stats on larger families in poverty? Who are they? They’re missing from this story.

Where are they mainly located? Are they disabled/unable to speak english/lack education? In which case, can targeted schemes help them better?

But also, in 5 years time, will this genuinely mean we will have fewer children in poverty - because if it boosts the median household income then won’t the measurement for poverty also rise?

I think tackling housing should be the priority. It eats up huge amounts of income for low earners. We need massive social housing growth.

I'm aware of the studies. I simply offered my anecdote as it differs from yours.

Some parents are selfish, some of them will live in poverty and some of them won't. That isn't going to change no matter what unfortunately.

Things are usually based on a majority and the majority of parents do have their children's best interests at heart, low income or high income. I'm not sure there is a solution that can completely solve the issue, especially as some selfish parents don't live in poverty so it wouldn't apply to them anyway and their children will fall through the gaps as do many children.

I think if you want people to take things seriously and make better decisions and not be bailed out by the taxpayer you gotta have people suffer just a bit to make the reality real for them. Otherwise they'll never learn

possibly making the one child they could afford's life a little harder, to let someone else have more.

This really shows the prevalent idea that the two child cap in some way prohibits people from having more children, and that lifting it will therefore result in some kind of surge in the birth rate for people on UC. In reality, lifting the cap is about saving children who already exist. We already know that the cap doesn't work as a disincentive to having children, which is a good thing, because we already have a declining birth rate.

There is so much contradiction in these arguments. We have a declining birth rate which means we need people to have more children. But once those children are born we want them to live in poverty as some kind of punishment to their parents for having them. Growing up in poverty makes it less likely that they'll grow up to be productive, financially contributing citizens because we know childhood poverty has a massive adverse impact on classroom attainment and future prospects. At the same time we don't want immigrants coming to the UK to fill jobs and pay taxes.

So what do you want? Who do you want bearing the future burden of paying taxes and funding your own pensions / retirement etc? It's not immigrants and it's not poor kids in this country, so what is the long term plan?

So someone working hard in a minimum wage job should be entitled to have as many kids as they like topped up by other taxpayers but those on higher incomes need to plan their families according to their means 🤔. No, in this day and age of easy access to contraception and abortion everyone needs to take responsibility for themselves at some point. I am also highly sceptical that increased child benefits will improve the long term outcomes for the majority of kids in these situations. I don’t support lifting the cap at all but I would rather see funding via vouchers or the like to ensure it actually goes towards the kids, obviously more expensive to implement such a system in practice.

I do have some sympathy for people who support the two-child cap. Of course people should be responsible and avoid having kids that they can't afford, of course they shouldn't just have as many kids as they like and expect the taxpayer to stump up and pay etc etc.

But ultimately, it doesn't appear that the policy has actually had any substantial impact on the family planning decisions of those who are dependent on welfare benefits, so the children are still being born.

And it isn't the fault of those children, or indeed their older siblings, if their parents have - for whatever reason - had more children than they can realistically afford. Those children deserve to flourish and thrive as much as any other child deserves to flourish and thrive, and frankly, we need to invest in them so that they don't get stuck in the same poverty trap that has caught their parents.

Allowing kids to grow up in deprived households in the UK in 2025 is utterly inhumane, and it is the ultimate in short term thinking for our society. We should be bending over backwards to give these kids a better start in life so that they can make better decisions than their parents did.

Exactly. So it’s an issue with businesses not paying people enough to live.

I doubt many people have a third child on the basis that they can’t get a bit more money from the state.

I don't think "they spend money on addictive substances which they can't kick because they live crap lives and possibly took up at a young age due to aforementioned crap lives" is a slam-dunk as an argument for "therefore their children don't deserve the possibility of nice things".

I think that there's research that parents mostly spend the money on their kids anyway, so it's a moot point.

And tbh, they should have both. Money from their parents and investment in food, education, safe communities.

Basically if you want to live in a nice society INVEST IN THE CHILDREN.

We have 3 beautiful DC. Never received a drop of child benefits or whatever as we earned too much.

"We can't afford it. The welfare budget has to be cut".

Around £18bn was lost to the Treasury 2023-24 through corporate tax evasion and avoidance alone. Adding SMEs and individuals, that figure rises to about £35bn.

48% of the Welfare budget is pensions and pensioner credits. That proportion will soon hit 50% and continue rising.

Brexit has cost the UK economy around £140bn, shrinking it by at least 4%, with an estimated loss of tax revenue of £80bn. Trade (import and export), productivity and job maintence/creation are down and will stay down.

Whatever the topline figure for spending on UC in a given year, virtually ll the money goes straight back into the economy, adding to tax revenues.

"Austerity" measures under Tory govts from 2010 fuelled the leap in government debt, and stifled growth, productivity and national incomes.

Cutting public spending because "we can't afford it" doesn't work. The "cost" of public spending isn't black/white, either/or.