Cap child tax credit after four children, says MP

of course i am not saying that those on minimum wage should be banned from having children. There are lots of people who only earn that who are bringing up children perfectly well. I am saying that if you want to have a baby, you have to be responsible for providing for it, and if you don't earn much you just have to prioritise your baby- for example- not smoking etc.

I just think there is a real underclass (and i say underclass as I don't know what else they could be called as they don't work) of people in the UK who have never worked and don't take any responsibility for their own children and this has to stop. There are families of three and four generations of wordlessness, and I actually don't think they should be allowed to keep repeating this cycle.

teenswhodhavethem - the MAIN reason for the disregard of maintenance for enefits purposes was for cases like mine. If you have a CSA assessment against an NRP, the DWP would have to assume that you were being paid the money each week. So if you got £30 a week maintenance, and they let you keep £20, but deducted they other £10 a week from your IS, all well and good, yes?

NO! If you have an NRP that doesn't pay - you are then LOSING that £10 a week - you are not getting it from the DWP with your IS, and you are not getting it from the NRP either. Which just leaves you £10 a week worse off. Their computer systems couldn't cope with that, especially in situations where the amounts were greater than that - and the Government were left with only a few options :

1. Ignore the fact that some lone parents were having significant amounts deducted for maintenance that wasn't being paid, leaving those dc well below the poverty line (in some cases, they were being paid, say, £85 a week - which meant that though they CLAIMED IS, they didn't actually GET any money from the DWP as it was all being deducted for maintenance - but their NRP wasn't paying the maintenance, leaving them with NOTHING to live on)

2. Spend Billions on updating their computer systems in ALL departments, including the CSA, to ensure that those in the above situation could PROVE they weren't actually getting any money for maintenance, even though they were meant to, so that they could stop the deductions from their IS.

3. Disregard maintenance for the purpose of IS.

And THAT is why the disregard is in place.

HTH.

Teachers not rewarding achievement is a myth or a sign of a poor school.

The minimum wage should be high enough to support a family on.

If you ban a whole section of society from breeding, and that section is the minimum wage workers, who is going to be serving your coffee when they retire? Who will be caring for your children, your grandparents, who will be cleaning your offices, serving your food? Nobody will want to do it. Nobody WILL do it.

Waiting is not always a good thing. My dp and I have waited until we were in our minds able to afford a child and until we thought we could provide the best environment for that child. I suspect I have left it too late and my dp will never have a child of his own. Waiting was a huge mistake .

I really feel for those who the pill doesn't work and no help from pct re permanent methods. If it were us I would be backing up with condoms.
We all know people who do have children purely for the benefits these children gain them then drag them up into clones of themselves. They are the ones these measures are targeted at. Not the vast majority who have fallen on hard times.

There are some people who will never earn much more than the minimum wage. Are we saying chat because some jobs pay a shit wage and some schools do such a bad job with our young people that they can only do those jobs that they are never entitled to have children.

how about before they have children, they do something so ensure that they are earning MORE than minimum wage??? or that they have a long term partner and are in a secure loving relationship, thus reducing the likelihood of the father running off and leaving them, so therefore they have two incomes coming in. Obviously things happen and there will always be people that fall on hard times, but there are many others, such as my foster childs mother who should just not be so bloody feckless??? no??

we have 5, my dp works and we are not on benefits, we have a morgage etc, we are not well off but we get buy and are entitled do a small amount of ctc, no working tax credits. we certainly dont get free school meals, i have never heard of getting them just becaus eyou have 4 or more children?! i think thats rubbish.

i wouldnt miss the ctc we get for baby no 5 tbh tho i imagine some people would and that is the problem.

re contraception i cant use any hormonal contraception due to a condition i suffered after no 4. no 5 was planned tho.

as dp and are both young, 32, and 34 they wont consider sterilisation for either of us despite us having 5 children! tbh its not what we want, we dont want any more but it seems very final and we are still young enough that we may reconsider in a few years, i very much doubt it tho!

there obviously is a problem wiht the benefits system the way it is, how you change that without children suffering tho i do not know!

but i do think we need to look at the bigger picture and maybe deal with the tax dodgers/avoiders etc rather than picking on the easy target who are the vulnerable in society anyway.

How the fuck does someone on Minimum wage SAVE to 'make sure they have enough savings to keep them afloat for a year or so before they go over, say two children?'

Or are you saying that the working poor shouldn't have dc at all, mumblechum1? Because there is no way that someone on £11.8K pa before tax can afford to save enough money to do that. Not even for ONE child.

Eugenics, much?

These threads always boil down to the same thing - the poor should not have dc at all if they cannot financially support them without state help, which given the, frankly, laughable level of wages that is paid to NMW workers, means they can NEVER have dc.

And what about those who HAVE dc before, say, redundancy, or relationship breakdown?

Al, that's the sort of thing I am talking about, yes.

Had a similar spirited discussion about healthy eating and patrolling/policing of lunchboxes.

Right - most people I know that have 3+ dc and are on benefits, don't WANT any more dc, but they have an issue of one sort or another with hormonal contraception (it doesn't agree with everyone - poor people don't want to get fat and moody or depressed due to contraception either), and their PCT has set arbitary age limits on sterilisation.

In my PCT, they will not put you on the waiting list for sterilisation UNTIL you are :

40 with no dc
38 with one living dc
36 with two living dc
34 with three living dc
32 with four living dc
30 with five living dc.

They will not even put you on the waiting list AT ALL if you are under 30 years old, even if you have MORE than 5 living dc.

I am 30yo, with 4 living dc. I have a disability - epilepsy - and my medication interferes with hormonal contraception, and I can't have the coil for other, medical reasons. When I am using hormonal contraception, even when taken properly, due to my meds, where other people would have a 98% chance of NOT getting pregnant while taking it properly - it is only a MAXIMUM of 85% effective in my case. Yet, due to my age, I cannot even get put ON THE WAITING LIST FOR STERILISATION in my PCT. (I have another 18 months to go before I am 'old enough' to be put on the waiting list )

And a vasectomy is all well and good - but most men in my area WON'T have a vasectomy, and the PCT won't do it unless the man has at least 2 living dc.

And also, say you have 2 dc, your DP has a vasectomy, then he leaves you. You then go into a new relationship with another man - who HASN'T had a vasectomy. If you have contraception issues - then it is an easy step to see how people end up with 3+ dc in those circumstances.

Yes I declined an invitation to a parents evening at school to tell us the perils of drinking, smoking and the Internet.

'I'm booking him into a tutor to go over the important basics in Maths & English.'

Sounds liek an excellent idea.
The tragedy is that many peopel do not have the money or ability to do this themselves.

I really like my children's school and the staff. I know thay are at the mercy of orders from on high.
One particular initiative that rendered me apoplectic was learning that my child had been signed up to an 'anti-smoking club' which involves being sent glossy magazines, bagbacks and other crap on a regular basis.
I've sent it all back, told them to deregister her and put in an FOI request as to how much all of this is costing.

I am extraordinarily pleased with my children's school, I have a year 10 and a year 9 but I am rather amazed at how they are spoon fed to pass their GCSE courses. They appear to be far less rigorous than O levels and that can only be to make our children appear cleverer than they actually are in comparison to the rest of the world.

However pleased I am with the school I won't be encouraging my year ten son to take part in Work Experience this year. I'm booking him into a tutor to go over the important basics in Maths & English. I feel that Work Experience is a total waste of time and it's a great excuse to get year 10's out of the school while year 7 &8 are on residentials and year 9 have an "activity" week

So very true Moondog.

'Yes, moondog, some people's moral compass has deteriorated. But it is due to an abandonment of education and moral guidance.'

I agree and idsagree.
Education is, as a rule, dire.
There is no reason why all but the most disabled shoudl not be literate, numerate and with a basdic undrstanding of time keeping and self discipline.
These aspects are not focussed on in many schools. On the contrary, contemporary education, particularly of 'troubled yoof' focusses on building 'self esteem'.
What the mandarins overlook is that unless this is founded on solid concrete achievement, it means nothing.
Feeling proud of your fancy 'record' of achievement' which is full of downloaded pictures and text the teacher has written can't exist, primarily because you can't even read it.

Kids are told they are great, special and marvellous yet have no real achievement to back it up with. I recall an individual of my acquaintance recently who was quite put out that his sea based job experience didn't involve jet skiiing.

Unless we inculcate in all that success is generally built on hard work and getting the basics of a good education, we are all quite frankly, fucked.

I spend a large proportion of my own time, teaching my children thet things that do not seem of priority in their school-proper spelling, nice handwriting, a sound foundation in basic maths skills, reading aloud every day.

Concerts, visits from 'community officers', anti smoking workshops and watcihng dvds for charidee whilst wearing wacky clothes mean that these things are left by the wyaside.

Most kids learn in spite of how they are taught, not because of how/what they are taught.

The type of employment is wealth creating goods producing activity, not more "sustainability officers", "climate change coordinators" and "community football development liaison officers".

Exactly right, scarletmummy2.

Ken Livingstone was on the Andrew Marr show this morning and said that we had destroyed our jobs for the people over the years, whereas Germany never did. They are the powerhouise of Europe and it is due to their people being in employment. Our people are not feckless scoungers, we could have done the same if employment was available.

totally agree. I personally think it has been caused by the comprehensive system. Germany has stuck with a two tier system that has shown great results and they have really excellent technical schools. It isn't seen as negative thing in Germany at all.

'They stopped testing her for her reading as it was quite far ahead'

Yes, she might get ideas above her station. Proles are supposed to be feckless, so that won't do.

'I see day in day out many that really are virtually unemployable. That is reality unfortunately, however this has been the case for years and years, probably since the 1970's.'

Yes, and that is the shocking record of our education system that has led to this.

'So how come 500 immigrants are finding jobs every week( month!)?'

Are they? Where are these figures from? And how many indigenous people are finding work every week too? I bet there are a lot more - but you aren't told about them.

kind of agree about the education system. DD1 (5) is in Year 1. They stopped testing her for her reading as it was quite far ahead, but meanwhile give her awards for, 'trying hard...' and, 'having a good attitude...'

The teacher says they aren't supposed to reward the achievement, but rather the process

Guess it's the same sort of thing at job centers?

While there is certainly a shortage of jobs, as someone who works trying to get young people into employment, I see day in day out many that really are virtually unemployable. That is reality unfortunately, however this has been the case for years and years, probably since the 1970's.