How do we know the extra welfare payments for multiple children will be spent on the children .

[hattie43]

A genuine question really . I don’t begrudge the children and I’ll save my irk for the parents but how do we know the extra money will be used to support the children in the right way giving them a better start and turning them into these honerable citizens. It worries me that the kids with feckless parents are going to be given much more money but the parents spend it on themselves not the kids . Just because these parents have more money doesn’t mean they’ll use it responsibly or change the attitudes they may pass down .

I didn’t say I had an opinion on it just said it was what had happened round here. Trying to explain what I think that poster meant

Having supported families you can't and what is worse is that we saw children neglected due to money spent anywhere but never on them! More money is not necessarily going to help some children, could even make it worse where vulnerable adults are targeted for their money!

Sorry apologies - I thought you were the person who said it originally.
My error 🙂

I was reading along with the thread but now got a bit lost. What's this about Indians owning petrol stations ?? Did the Reform Party social media unit arrive and join in?

The reason these sell offs are happening is (obviously) because petrol stations will become obsolete. Companies like Morrisons who plan long term will be less interested in them, and investors who focus on short term investments will be mopping them up, often small business owners with cash on the hip. It’s not some conspiracy.

Yes I was very confused when that suddenly popped up.

Do people usually buy their groceries from the petrol station anyway?

Ok, makes sense

My reasoning was:
a) Presumably the school chose Asda vouchers as there was a branch nearby;
b) Asda stocks most things you're likely to need, including toiletries and clothes, even if it wouldn't necessarily be your first choice.

I was just trying to work out the logic of losing half the value of the vouchers.

Yes, quite.

Some people simply don't deserve to have children.

I used to get healthy start vouchers, back when they were paper vouchers.

I couldn't use them at the local grocers where the owner was friendly and helpful and selected his produce based on the quality, so it always tasted good, rarely went mouldy and was happy to give advice on how to cook Plantain and other things. I could spend them at co-op across the road though which I did. But I would have rather gone to John's fruit and veg. Luckily we bought enough that it was usually worth going to both, but it is one issue with vouchers.

You don’t. But I don’t see that as a reason for not giving the money AT ALL.

For every one parent who spends it on fags, there’s another three grateful for the extra breathing space (not based on scientific data. Obviously).

I had a (very) quick look around for some UK research on cash vs vouchers (or other forms of support eg food parcels). This short and fairly easy to read paper from the food bank organisation Trussell is a literature review of UK hardship schemes which gave cash or voucher grants. It even has a Covid lunch voucher scheme case study - spoiler: recipients preferred cash because it was more flexible, like @BertieBotts and other PPs mention.
https://cms.trussell.org.uk/sites/default/files/wp-assets/Cash-first-literature-review.pdf

The Food Foundation is also very good on this. Or Google “cash first” approaches.

To be fair they have chosen to have children. They might well have made a poor choice, dont use birth control but they have still made a choice.

I wasnt going to have more than 2 children because I couldnt afford to. That was my choice unless you are indicating that some women cannot be held responsible for their choices.

How could this ever be policed? We could bring in a food stamp system and block them being used on alcohol and cigarettes. Go back to the housing benefit system rather than UC and pay it directly to the landlord/HA. Some sort of system where other bills are directly paid. Then have a clothing allowance or vouchers for clothing. I mean, I can’t see any other way.

Ludicrous propositions. It’s down to the parents to ensure their child’s needs are met so the government has to trust parents will do this, which the vast majority do.

Its not a "judgement" issue... its an economic one.

There is zero problem with members of society being net recipents.

There is a massive economic problem with the majority of the population being net recipients.

On the idea of food vouchers so that "feckless families can't spend the money on fags and booze"

Clearly you can't give people the majority of their benefits in vouchers, because you can't be that prescriptive about where people's money goes, because need varies from household to household and from time to time. People are always going to need cash.

So you could give a bit as vouchers which could only be spent on food - but you can't guarantee that's additional money spent on food. It might just mean that people put the vouchers towards food which frees up other money to spend on fags and booze.

Or the vouchers don't get spent at all because restrictions on how they are spent create too many barriers to using them and the feckless families either can't or aren't motivated to overcome them.

Or the vouchers get traded for cash and the cash is spent on fags and booze.

And all this adds a lot of additional cost and overhead for government (vs giving people cash) and makes life more difficult for responsible families to budget on a low income.

There are plenty of educated people who do bad things in the world, and who abuse their children. There are good people in every social group, and bad people in every social group. The level of hatred of the poor on this thread is shocking.

The whole idea of UC was Conservative (Iain Duncan Smith if I recall?) thinking that you give people one monthly payment that replicates a wage and people will learn to be financially responsible and budget over the course of a month to make it an easier transition to move into work.

Which is like the polar opposite to "give people vouchers so we can ensure people spend their money on things we approve of".

Schools we're one of my first thoughts when the budget was announced, and how the staff of schools will be over the moon as they would be the ones who see all what you've described. Now I've realised it isn't for all children at all and there will still be child poverty 😪 I have 3 disabled children and live comfortably enough, also working families will also already be a bit better off, and we are the ones who are eligible, but it's the families and children on just standard uc who are already in poverty who will still continue to be, no point in nasty comments about theses families, it's the children who will continue to suffer, so the already most vulnerable who nothing changes for. Very sad. It's should be available for all, or capped at 3 or 4 even.

I guess I'm saying people like myself and working families need it less than the poorest in society but we are still entitled to it.

Whether it is a massive problem depends entirely on how much the net contributors contribute.

Say you have a country of 100 people. 99 of them are net recipients of £100 each, total £9,900 pa. That is not a problem if the one billionaire is contributing £10,000 pa.
Of course as there is only one billionaire he could emigrate and that imaginary country would be stuffed - but real life is not like that and I don't expect the UK net contributors will all up sticks and leave over a bit more tax.

You do realise you are lucky to be able to work?

I can assure you anyone dealing with real deprivation is not happy. They know throwing money at the problem is an easy win to make people feel good. It will do nothing for these children. These aren’t a minuscule percentage. Before you think you’ll benefit. I would suggest researching the hidden gem in the budget that will cut school funding in reality. This will mean even less support for vulnerable children including those with SEND. This money needed to be spent elsewhere if the children were really the ones Labour were thinking of. They are denying it and gaslighting at the moment but anyone in education (who actually works in high need schools) spotted this last night and the OBR have laid it out, pretty clearly.

if you speak to school teachers they will say that the children most impacted by poverty while trying the hardest are those whose parents work but earn just above the UC threshold.

They are the ones, who if the government just focusses on them a bit more, would really help their kids. But Labour only really focusses on non-working people while the Conservatives focus on the rich.

All non-disability benefits should be temporary and only people who work should receive the maximum. There are other measures they can use to alleviate child poverty like cancelling school holidays and running schools 6-7 days a week like what other countries do. Having a lower tolerance for child abuse - ie taking kids away permanently much sooner so they have a chance at a decent life.