Being devil's advocate - should there be a cap on the number of children a family can claim benefit for?

[ReallyTired]

Flame throwers ready - play nicely everyone.

I feel uncomfortable about further cuts to the support that families already recieve. Young families have suffered enough. It would be interesting know how other developed countries help their young people.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31743031

There are plenty of people who think we don't have room for people fleeing for their lives from Islamic State. If Britain is full up then surely we should be discouraging people from having any lots of children. I think the labour policy of being more generous to families with child tax credits, pregnancy health grant, generous childcare subsidy has increased the birth rate. Maybe there is an arguement for discouraging people from having more children. I don't know. Many migrants are intelligent, hard working and frankly more of an asset to the country than many native born British people.

However capping child benefit combined with the loss of child tax credits will plunge families into poverty. Children have no choice in being born and should not be punished for the lack of responsiblity of their parents.
The child benefit/ child tax credit system is broke and does not help to allievate poverty.

Yes I know that. My point is that they don't have to be supported by tax credits to be fairly supported.

Tax credits go to people in need but they also go to people that choose not to work more hours, or who choose to have a SAHP, or who are already living entirely off benefits and are unable to afford their children but then choose to have more.

If money was only ever given to people who have fair reason to need it, then there wouldn't be so much support for tax credit cuts and a child benefits cap now.

Well, if you 'know that', then why did you write a massive long post that was entirely inaccurate?

It wasn't inaccurate, it was opinions based on what I'd like to see happen with our welfare system. It wasn't intended to be taken as a factual guide as to what someone could claim for a third child today.

I think that many working families make the choice not to have more children because they can't afford them. There is contraception available to stop unplanned pregnancies.

possibly but there is a difference between people who have three children and people who have 8/9/10 children three seems ok because you could have divorced remarried and wanted a baby as a couple

my friend is having number 8 soon i believe and she has never worked a day in her life fortunately her boyfriend does she will continue to have babies till she gets her girl

possibly but there is a difference between people who have three children and people who have 8/9/10 children three seems ok because you could have divorced remarried and wanted a baby as a couple

Frankly, it doesn't seem OK to me. You can have a new partner and not have a new baby, or you can perhaps even try to work things out with the father/mother of your existing children. Blended families generally aren't great for the 'old' children.

The number of problems i've seen caused by blended families is huge. Is all about the parents wants and the children just have to put up with it.

It's why I'd favour childcare help only, less children would be born so in turn less blended families and more onus on the adults being responsible for the choices they make. Rather than the selfish I want it attitude not caring that society pays the cost for that financially.

^Yes. I can't believe how blithely parents de/re-couple these days. Sorry, I know I sound like an old lady but it's shocking.

its all about the parents wants and the children just have to put up with it

Exactly.

give it 40 years, and when there is not enough working population due to low birth rates to fund the level of pensioners at that time it will be a different story (and i mean pensions/care etc)

we'll have robot nurses to care for the elderly

yay, I cant wait to get old now in the reassurance that I'll be treated with kindness, love and dignity by a robot nurse.

harrasseddotcom are you comfortable with current population of 7 billion growing? How many people would there have to be to make you nervous about limited resources?

I can't think of any problem that wouldn't be improved upon or resolved if there were say, 1 billion people on the planet today rather than 7.

Yep a cap at 2
Me and dh have decided 2 is all we can afford so we're not having more
I would rather the services we use- decent education, nhs services etc were available than more cash handed out for larger families
I come from a larger family btw and things were tight,
I don't think people should be considering whether they can afford another child based on what the gov will give them

7bn minds working together are better than 1bn!

Sorry, Osolea, I thought we were talking about govt spending cuts and how they will actually affect people as of next April, here in the real world. I didn't realise that we were discussing some kind of la-la-land that makes discussion of how families will be affected redundant.

I live in the UK, there isnt 7 billion people living where i live. Theres about 64 million. Added to that I live in Scotland where we are populated by about 5/6 million. Over population isnt caused by anyone on this island. But we do need enough younger population to look after the ageing generation and continuation (unless you are suggesting that the UK population should be planning to fizzle out at some point obvioiusly not anytime soon). And with falling birthrates i dont think its currently possible for future generations. And if we are curbing birth rate then the only other possibility is increased immigration. Which if done selectively based upon need/requirement I dont have a problem with but large sections of the population and media do.

Because of climate change we need to shunt the world's population up a bit away from desert areas, flood regions and so on. We can do it semi-willingly and in a planned manner, or we can do it via war. I know which I would prefer.

So by all means hang on to your benefits and your school places and your seat on the train and the parking space on the street outside your house, but unless you share sooner or later, your great-grandchildren etc may find themselves living rather brutish and short lives as they compete for scant resources in a ever-declining civilisation.

I don't think I am scaremongering too much - perhaps people ought to look at documentaries like Bitter Lake, which gives one view of difficulties in the Middle East. I am sure I entirely agree with all of its contentions but it is right about people trying to find simple answers when all of these questions are supremely complex and interlinked.

Sorry, Osolea, I thought we were talking about govt spending cuts and how they will actually affect people as of next April, here in the real world. I didn't realise that we were discussing some kind of la-la-land that makes discussion of how families will be affected redundant.

Oh, ok. I thought we were giving our opinions as to whether we think there should be a limit of how many children you can claim benefits for seeing as that's what the thread title actually asked for.

How silly of me to offer alternative suggestions as to how people in need could possibly be supported on a debate about a benefit cap.

Boffin,
from an evolutionary perspective, war is a great way of removing excess people.
As for the limits on how many children you can claim benefits (other peoples money) for, I would suggest zero.

redbinneo

That is exactly what my mother says.
And with regard to benefits, I think it's better to set up systems so people are unlikely to need them.

Here's an example of the altruism dilemma.

I was helping someone with something and couldn't have breakfast, so I got a coffee from the van at the station instead.

While I was waiting for my train I noticed a rough sleeper with a dog in the waiting room, just waking up. I had been up two hours. He asked me outright for my coffee. Being a softie I gave it to him.

That day I worked 12 hours on no breakfast. The rough sleeper probably didn't work at all. I went to bed very late after working probably too hard, he probably wafted about having smokes and generally hanging out and being with his dog in the nice weather.

I justified being a softie on the basis of having more fortune in life, better health, a home, etc, but at the end of the day, I had bothered to become a grown up and pull my finger out, but the rough sleeper was basically able to arse about doing what he wanted, sponging off softies like me when he felt like it.

The scales fell away from my eyes a bit and I realised quite a lot of the time when I was giving things away or doing charity stuff it was about me feeling good and often did not help things in a wider sense. It promoted mild parasitism and dependency.

The Kids Company thing reinforced this view.

I am a bit less of a softie now and next time I would tell him to leave my coffee alone, that was my breakfast. But in a wider sense I am reviewing how I feel about giving things away in general and why we all do it. Work in progress.

yep sleeping rough is so relaxing, wafting about with your dog not a care in the world

war is a great way of removing excess people
specifically the reckless young men, they make great cannon fodder dont they

Suzanne, my point is that there are different ways to live and people make choices. It is not always about victimhood.