Cap child tax credit after four children, says MP

Well I generally agree with most of what you say, Claig, but there is another issue here.
We know that many (not all-I don't have figures to hand) large families cost a huge amount to the state,not just in benefits but in the additional 'support' they need through the intervention/inteference of social workers, school welfare officers. HVs and other |HCPs and so on.
That in itself might not be a problem because it does after all create work for the ever agrowing armies of helping professions (The Centre for Policy Studies has written a very interesting paper on SEN as a growing industry and it is spot on.)

Many of the availiable jobs are taken by immigrants, because the indigenous population does not want to do them as they have, quite logically, figured out that the benefits they receive will bring in the same amount. Unfortunately this means they also miss out on the other advantages of work-operating to a schedule, valuing leisure time, getting out of the house,m meeting people outside their immeditate circle and seizing additional opportunities.

Tyhe immimgrant on the other hand, may be sending his money home where it is paying for a brother or sister to attend school, or parents to buy a plot of land, so for them, the prospect of very long days, poor pay and bad conditions pales into insignificance because they have a goal in mind.

I have sat in many homes in the developing world with people who have told me stories like this. I have looked through their photo albums, seen the homes the money earnt in an 'Indian' restaurant in Manchester bought and the children educated as a result of it.

Some we wein, some we lose.
The fact that most people can now walk into Primark and buy a top for a night out that they will never wear again is a gain. The fact that it is made in Bangladesh by someone on a pittance is somewhat of a gain for that RMG worker (she now has a job and money indsependently of a man) but a loss for the British manufacturing industry.

I'm no economist but I can see it is a complicated set-up.

Why wildeyed, do you have more than four children?

No, I said in my post I only have two. I realise the OP was about tax credits for larger families but I am not the only one to wander away from the point as is usual on MN.

I was referring to all the calls for people to limit their families to what they can afford without help from tax payers. Are Child Tax Credits benefits or not? Are they only classed as state benefits if you have more than four children?

The OP also wasn't about Child Benefit or Free School Meals. Incidentally if you get Working Tax Credits your children are not entitled to free school meals or free milk. Due to the costs of working (transport etc) our disposable income is much less than if DH just claimed JSA and CTC but our son still doesn't get them.

Going back to the OP:

Surely the vast majority of the cost of CTC is made up of families like mine with less than four children whether working or not. So, in order to actually cut the cost to the tax payer it would be necessary to cut tax credits for smaller families too. When I was paying taxes (for 20+ years pre-DC) I was happy for my taxes to be spent on the future generation and I hope to be able to do so again in the future.

I would also be happy for Child Benefit to continue to be universal. It is a drop in the ocean of this country's debt problems. There is always the option of not claiming it.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/1578468/One-in-five-children-growing-up-on-benefits.html

On in five children in Britain grow up in households dependent on state benefits, But that is not the fault of the families. There is not enough well-paid work and opportunities available.

The Conservative MP, Chris Grayling, is right to blame government ministers

'Chris Grayling, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said: "This is a shocking indictment of the Government's failure to tackle child poverty. The fact that nearly half of children in some areas come from homes entirely dependent on benefits should bring shame to ministers."

'Britain now has Europe's highest proportion of children in workless households.'
That is shocking. It's not because British people are feckless, lazy scroungers. The system has not created enough employment for them.

I think the following is a pretty disgusting statement by someone who to my mind is out of touch and "alright Jack"

"Robert Whelan, of the Right-wing think-tank Civitas, said the figures were a "disaster".
He added: "We need a stick to get people off benefits. The whole welfare policy has been based on carrots, which are not working. These people have now eaten so many carrots it's amazing they haven't turned into rabbits."

Where will people go if they move off benefits. There are millions unemployed. Don't believe the propaganda that they are all lazy, there really aren't enough jobs out there and there are far too many jobs that pay wages that are much too low. All these think tanks and the great and good have not created employment for the people. They bail out bankers with billions and call millions of struggling people "scroungers". It's shameful.

@ MindTheGapp - you said that;

"spiritual poverty is much more of an issue than financial poverty. If we crack the former, the latter ceases to exist".

Could you define spiritual poverty, please? It sounds like you've discovered how to make us all rich - great. Please tell us how to be spiritually rich, please so we can sort out this pesky recession business.

Have you thought of running for Prime Minister, so you can do a Gordon and "save the world"?

I'm sure that what people on the breadline are really looking for is someone like you who recognises the gnawing hunger spiritual hole in their lives, and can feed their bodies oh sod that souls.

rhetoric

The elite want what they call a 'sustainable' population. That means a reduced population. Here is Eton educated Sir Jonathon Porritt on a 'sustainable' population.

"The second is to see if we might persuade (please note, persuade, not coerce!) the 26% of women in the UK who are currently expected to have more than two children to ?stop at two?. (The other 74% already do stop at two, or have one child or none.) If we did this, we would be able to cut our forecast population by around 7 million people."

www.jonathonporritt.com/blog/sustainable-population

There will be a number of ways that they move towards this. One will be education about scroungers and child benefit for large families. They will be trying to do lots of 'persuading'. But they will also use 'save teh planet' rhethoric and further taxation and penalties and low growth and austerity in order to try and drive the message home.

By 'they', I am referring to the elite, not their Labour party or green puppets.

Yes we should be more like France. We should look after our people more.

I'd rather pay for a few scroungers than let genuine families go without. I accept that as an unavoidable cost associated with living a civilised society that supports those in need of help. That doesn't mean that I approve of the piss takers at all, just that I can't see a way of avoiding them without penalising those in need of a safety net. Besides it's not the children's fault they have feckless parents. I can't see that reducing the income of these families can possibly fail to have a negative impact on the children.

'we've been taxed to the hilt as a family'

we all have and they intend to tax us more to "save teh planet" and cut our "carbon footprint". Don't blame it on families with more than 5 children. They get only a minute fraction of our taxes, lots of our taxes are wasted on grand projects, subsidies to rich landowners who erect windfarms, and who knows what else?

I don't think that doing well at school is the mark of a worthy human being. I know people who haven't passed a single exam but are far more worthy than some who went to Oxbridge. David Davis MP was in a single parent household. No, I don't think that children in single parent households are likely to do worse at school. I think they are just as clever as Cameron's kids, but are possibly going to worse schools. I believe teh education system should be improved.

'You don't think that one single parent family living on benefits breads another generation doing the same?'

Not at all. David Davis MP is an example to the contrary.

I believe there aren't enough jobs available, enough factories, enough manufacturing, enough industry, enough investment. Once that is sorted out and opportunities are available, then many of our problems will disappear.

'You think that they will help the ageing population instead...could i ask how?'
No they won't help the elderly, because that is not part of their plan. But that doesn't mean it has to remain that way.

'i'm sure that having loads of children is 'great for them' as its people like me who end up paying for them

You are paying far more to support BBC salaries, home flipping, subsidies to rich landowners with windfarms, carbon footprint taxes, EU subsidies, the Olympics etc. than you are to the relatively few families with 5 children. I think those families are far more worthy than all of the rest combined.

craig - by 'thy' I'm assuming you are referring to the labour gov as they were the party that encouraged mass immigration and the influx of a young labour force.

perhaps this country should be more like the french government which i understand has a payment system which encourages graduates to have more children

claig - start to tax me....we've been taxed to the hilt as a family and got very little back over the years. i doubt we will get much when we retire either.

so you don't agree with the stats that say children of single parents are likely to do worse at school and are more likely to turn to drugs and alcohol and be out of work? You don't think that one single parent family living on benefits breads another generation doing the same? You think that they will help the ageing population instead...could i ask how?

i'm sure that having loads of children is 'great for them' as its people like me who end up paying for them

There is another thread around somewhere about non resident parents (usually fathers) not paying for their offspring from one relationship then going off and producing more children with the next partner.

I would cap them instead. No child benefit for any children of a non paying non resident parent.

well said claig!

They call it a "dependency" culture. But they created it. They took the jobs away. They created austerity and globalisation and let companies offshore their work to where labour is cheaper. Why? Because they don't care about the population, just as they don't care about the elderly or about children receiving no child benefit. But of course ther eis one thing they "care" about, that's "saving the planet", only you may not be part of it.

They have been flipping hiomes on expenses for years. I'd rather that money went to families in need with 5 or more children.

Most people do restrict the size of their families, most people take these decisions. It is only relatively few families that have 5 or more children. But great for them, because those young children will one day contribute to provide for our elderly.

Our birth rate has been declining. We need more people to provide for our ageing population. Why do the elite want to educate the public to the opposite? Because they don't care about our ageing population, they want to restrict them and cut their pensions and benefits.

They are educating you about scroungers and the poor and poor people with large families because they want you to think that it is "unfair" that these people receive public resources. But that is only the beginning. You won't be immune to it. As people have said you may fall on hard times and need public resources one day. When you are old you will definitely need them, but they intend to cut them for you.

They will wheel out greens on your TV to explain to you that ach human has a "human footprint" which increases the "carbon footprint" and they will tell you that this harms the "planet", and they will educate you to think it is "unfair" that your "human footprint" is using up teh planet's resources, just as large families use up public resources. You may be middle class and not need public resources, but they won't let you off because iof that, because your "human footprint" will be "unfair" to them. So they will start to tax you and penalise you for exceeding your "human footprint" and for having a large family.

They are educating you one brick at a time.

I think Melanie Phillips is slightly OTT there.

I have no problem with people having as many children as they see fit and feel they want and can cope with.

I do, though, have issues with people who don't take responsibility for their fertility or the children they produce. Every child is a choice in the UK.
If you earn very little and need a major financial contribution from the tax payer, then part of that responsibility is to restrict your family size to reasonable level.
After all, all those who don't rely on benefits have to do so.

Melanie Phillips is spot on and understands the motivations of those who want to educate you to think of children as a "burden".

"The blessings of a large family and the contribution this makes to prosperity and progress don't figure at all. Instead, children are to be measured solely by their burdensome impact on the planet.

What kind of sinister and dehumanised mindset is this? It is no coincidence that the country which comes nearest to Jonathon's ideal society is Communist China, which imposed a murderously cruel policy of restricting families to one child apiece. For the desire to reduce the number of children that parents produce is innately totalitarian."

Agree with KRITIQ. I don't think it is really about saving money as the number of families and sums are relatively small. Also we neeed more young people in order to support our ageing population.

My guess is it is just another part of the education process that the elite wish to deliver in order to reduce population size of those they consider unworthy. You know thw type, those people just brimming over with empathy, the ones who want to "save the planet".
Now they say it is 5 children, then it will be 4, then 3 etc.

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1133682/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-Why-Green-zealots-think-dictate-children-allowed-have.html

Well, not me!

I've got five!

Well, it's pretty clear that the idea behind this policy isn't to save money, as there are relatively few families with so many children and there has been a declining birthrate in the UK for years.

I suspect it's an attempt both to pull the wool over the eyes of the public that it's "cost-saving" while playing to the puritan/eugenic gallery (many children = too much sex + inferior breeding stock) and making the sanctimonious parents of their perfect 2.4 children (including some here it seems) nearly wet themselves in delight at putting the boot in to those they see as inferior.

Why 8wildeyed*, do you have more than four children?

Can I just ask how anyone working full-time on NMW is supposed to be able to afford children without help from tax credits? Can anyone else remember when the NMW was being introduced and there were cries of it being unaffordable for businesses?

If there were no tax credits how high would wages have to be in order for ordinary working families to simply provide the basics for themselves?

We rely on tax credits (both working and child) plus LHA because we rent privately. We have a small 2 bed house (2 adults DS & DD) and due to the changes being made to both tax credits and LHA rates we are being forced to move to a cheaper area.

I was hoping to go back to work when my daughter starts pre-school but we will no longer have any family support nearby. DH can transfer his job to a different area but the hours are variable so it is not possible for me to get work around his job.

Not sure how we are going to cope and now I learn that from this thread and others like it that I probably should have aborted my child and been sterilised.

Here's CinnabarRed's tax thread, there's loads of interesting information there, including on the taxation of multinationals.

CinnabarRed started a thread a little while ago, which aimed to dispel some of the glib nonsenses about tax. It was very interesting and well-informed. I'll see if I can find it. I'll link it here if I do.