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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

295 replies

ReallyTired · 17/09/2015 09:56

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.

OP posts:
PeachyTheSanctiMoanyArse · 17/09/2015 17:22

It's NOT backdated, not really: if you are already claiming and there is no break, then it is OK to continue. if however it is a new claim, even kids born before the change cannot be claimed for.

So if your job is lost, if your partner dies, if you become very ill and cannot work.

I loathe that.

Also, it will affect people who could be or already are in the role of kindred carer, making it financially difficult for a family to take on a child they have links with could force that child into care, and I also loathe that.

As a family, I think we are on our way back up- husband's business growing and I am looking for work after being a carer (I have acquired a post grad part time alongside it so am pretty well skilled)- however, we know only too well how it is to have a number of crises change everything. We were doing well, own house etc; by the end of a few years that included 2 diagnoses of disability in children, plus 1 suspected, a surrendered career for caring reasons and then a redundancy for the other one- well yes. It was hellish. All four children were born before this; we've never had a child whilst claiming and had no reason to think we'd ever need to worry.

So no, I don't support the plans are they currently are. I can't support a plan that penalises people at the most vulnerable time of their life -bereavement or sickness- even if they have both been paying taxes for twenty years. I cannot support a change that could force children into care because the person who could take them on cannot afford it.

Bottlecap · 17/09/2015 17:22

If I couldn't afford a child and were personally opposed to abortion, I'd have a coil and use a condom. There's also only 3 or 4 days a month when you can get pregnant on average, it's not rocket science.

squatcher · 17/09/2015 17:24

No to a cap - it will be the children who suffer and it is not their choice. I don't think it will be effective in stopping "irresponsible breeding" either.

goblinhat · 17/09/2015 17:26

squatcher- but people who earn a salary have to cut their cloth accordingly.
We don't get a pay rise every time we have a child- why should it be any different for people on benefits?

colley · 17/09/2015 17:27

goblinhat - If you are low paid, you will get an increase in benefits. This is not about allowing DCs to live a life of luxury, this is about making sure parents can feed and clothe them.

Mistigri · 17/09/2015 17:29

ourblanche I agree it's not being "forced", but it's certainly being asked to choose between having an abortion and raising your kids in poverty. What would you do?

Hands up those who believe in a baby quota for poor people who are in favour of a abortion on demand.

goblinhat · 17/09/2015 17:30

colley- that's not a very responsible attitude. So I should happily go on to have 12 or 14 kids, knowing that because I can't afford them other people will support me?

stopfaffing · 17/09/2015 17:30

If there is a cap it should not be retrospective, only affect new parents, not current ones.

CookieMonsterIsOnADiet · 17/09/2015 17:31

Colley, maybe the parents should be doing that themselves. Little wonder we have one of the highest teen pregnancy rates when so many adults set such a poor example.

colley · 17/09/2015 17:31

goblinhat - Very few people do that. What this will mean is an increase in abortions. I don't support that.

PeachyTheSanctiMoanyArse · 17/09/2015 17:31

Goblin you do realise, yes, that a large number of people on benefits are only there short term after a redundancy or change in circumstances?

Outside of the SE the only people that will be affected greatly by the cap are those with several children. Penalising those means those children are then put at increased risk of poor health (housing, food, stress) and educational failure (housing, homelessness, lack of resources etc). This is basic provable fact. These will end up costing society far more than the cap ever saved.

That is pointless and can only be ideological.

OurBlanche · 17/09/2015 17:32

Of course you are being forced into an abortion if you won't have enough money to feed your DCs

Erm, think that through, without the emotional attachment. Think it through from a real life perspective, how things are, as opposed to how you would like them to be!

There are other options, adoption, fostering, 2nd, 3rd and 4th jobs, no SAHMs, higher wages, lower taxes, higher taxes and many, many more. People and government make them all the time. These are real life fiscal decisions that have to be made. The choice to have a 3rd or 4th child is much more complicated than "will the tax payer pick up the bill for me?".

To boil it down to "cb is being cut so I will be forced to have an abortion should I accidentally get pregnant, or choose to and later meet unfortunate circumstances" is naive.

colley · 17/09/2015 17:34

Okay lets see if early abortion rates go up. I am sure they will. But time will tell.

PeachyTheSanctiMoanyArse · 17/09/2015 17:35

There's also a HUGE difference between 3 or 4 kids, and 14. In years of working within family and carer support, I have yet to meet a family with anything like that number of kids- my dad was one of 16, but I can assure you poor nan had absolutely no say in that. The poverty experienced was horrendous- dad is one of the brightest, hardest working people I know yet was expelled from school as he was tired, tired from working age 9 to feed himself as the money didn't stretch.

By his fifties he'd worked himself up to manage a few thousand people, but those who had been able to attend Grammar school (nan refused when he passed his 11+ as uniform cost so much and the 14 children before him had plenty to pass down, none for Grammar) had been fast tracked there by their late twenties, and he suffered for other people's choices.

PeachyTheSanctiMoanyArse · 17/09/2015 17:37

Abortion rates will rise, I agree and am sure of that.

But as it's not even backdated for new claims, the already born are my biggest concern. Sorry ten year old kiddo, your dad died and mum can't cover the bills alone, but a law passed last year means we can't help you out.

No thanks.

OurBlanche · 17/09/2015 17:40

Mistigri that isn't hypothetical for me. I am of an age when all the current benefits were simply not available.

Our life circumstances have only recently become stable and so we made the decision to have a termination when I was 20 and not to have any children at all. It was common sense for us. We could not afford to bring up children in a more stable manner than that in which we were raised. Having lived in relative poverty we made that choice.

So, I am not in favour of a quota, I don't see it as that. I see it as having only what you can afford. And I am in favor of making abortion easier to access, though not to have it on demand.

I am not fence sitting, I just don't agree that those 2 things are as polemic as you stated.

goblinhat · 17/09/2015 17:41

There is always contraception.

Bottlecap · 17/09/2015 17:44

Hands up those who believe in a baby quota for poor people who are in favour of a abortion on demand.

I believe in abortion on demand for every woman, wealthy and poor. And that's what we have in the UK.

ourblanche I agree it's not being "forced", but it's certainly being asked to choose between having an abortion and raising your kids in poverty. What would you do?

I agree with ourblanche that there are any number of things a family can do to deal with unplanned pregnancy. Looking to the government to deal with this problem, or any suggestion that an abortion might be "forced" is absurd.

Bottlecap · 17/09/2015 17:48

Abortion rates will rise, I agree and am sure of that.

Perhaps (maybe someone can explain to me why this is a bad thing?), but I'd wager that people will be using contraception more fastidiously as well.

goblinhat · 17/09/2015 17:50

bottlecap- I agree- no-one is forcing anyone here.

" THe government will force me to jump off a bridge because they won't pay for a sauna in my house."

Bolograph · 17/09/2015 18:19

Hands up those who believe in a baby quota for poor people who are in favour of a abortion on demand.

Is that meant to be a trick question, or a very clever question which will flummox your opponents? Do you think there's anyone in favour of benefit caps who isn't in favour of abortion on demand?

Babyroobs · 17/09/2015 18:28

Yes I believe there should be a cap. Some claimants are getting ridiculous amounts in child benefit & tax credits for 5/6 kids. It doesn't cost that much extra for another kids until they hit the teen years.

BMW6 · 17/09/2015 18:35

I believe the Welfare State has become so all-encompassing that personal responsibility has been "forgotten" over the years.
Previous posters have pointed out that you can take out insurance against loss of income, and someone replied that they might stretch financially to cover that extra expense - but isn't that the whole point of thinking ahead before you have children in the first place, never mind for several children!

Of course children should not be allowed to starve - but there needs to be a shift in the attitude that it is up to the Government to provide rather than the parents.

Back when I was a child, if children were suffering neglect from their Parents (and being underfed is surely neglect) then the children were taken into care, at least temporarily.

I know, I am going to be flamed by posts saying the children then pay the price - but when the heck are the parents going to step up to the plate??

colley · 17/09/2015 18:37

Insurance is designed for healthy young people. Try getting insurance if you have a chronic condition? Or if you are in a series of temporary contracts? Many of us can't get insurance.

Investmentspaidout · 17/09/2015 18:39

Fair warning has been given that the cap will be set so I do support the cap. I grew up in a very large family, my parents did both work FT and no benefits claimed.The other argument against huge families is however lovely parents are you cannot give dc a huge amount of attention if you have lots of dc.