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.

senga, goblin et al. People are abused, by religion, by men, whatever the reason, sometimes they have no choice in the procreation process. What happens to those women, what happens to those children.
What happens to those of us that had good careers and had children we could afford?

Benefits are a lifeline for those that need them.

Planning to increase your family while expecting others to fund your lifestyle choice is unfair.

Punishes the children, not the parents, a tory voter/mail readers wet dream. For the money saved we could also cut subsidies to grouse moors, gun licensing, land ownership, etc etc.

If we are going to look at fiscal policy we need to look at the enterity of spending not marginal amounts. There are many more areas where funds could be cut, but it would hit the core Tory voting areas or effect the vested interests of those in power ( all those well paid non-excutive directorships and such after). There are masses of cuts to spending or subsidies that could be made but are not because it suits them, I use the grouse moor subsidy as a great example cause you got to consider, who uses them, who benefits.

We could also raise taxes on the very wealthy, trickle down economics does not work and the wealthy do not create jobs. What this sort of economics does is entrench wealth and privilege and transfer money from the poor to the rich. It takes money away from you and yours.

Yet you stand here, hopping mad and suggest Keith Joseph style polcies, and rant about what the poor have, but fail to see a society reverting to Edwardian standards, with the wealth flowing up. You look at the poor and feel jealous, or cross because they are not destitute, but you fail to see those who benefit most from society not contributing their fair share.

You distracted and moronic fools, if you only chose to look at the world around you with a different view....

Of course there should be a cap, there's just no need for people to have three children if they're already recieving help to pay for the first two.

We don't have to hand out child related benefits to everyone to catch the very few who have had unavoidable contraception failures and then go on to be left by their partners or be widowed or become permanently disabled.

Pay more in disability benefits, invest in the CMS/CSA and make NRPs pay for their children, and remember that people will still be getting enough to provide for two children. Heating a home and providing for for two children isn't all that much more expensive than providing for two.

spartans not the only one at all. We will stop at 3 because
a) one of us could cope with 3 on our own if we split or one of us became ill, disabled or died
b) mum and dad are confident and I am confident that they'd be able to have the kids if we both died - they are in their early 50s and foster preschool / young kids currently

We are insured to the hilt (both income protection and life insurance) which costs around £25 total per month - life ins policies are for £160keach. I plan to up mine to £250k before DC3 arrives as if DH dies I'll get help from his workplace but if I die, he'll still have child care costs but no other cash as i have no workplacd!

When I discussed all this with my friends (in
context of course!) they thought I was a right doom-mongerer.

I think as a parent it is a duty to provide for your kids - obviously - and I don't rely on there being a benefits system that's anything approaching fit for purpose for much longer.

The ideology behind the cap is quite a worry, but at least it's currently only about actual payments from the government and not restricting school places to 2 per family, or NHS births to 2 per woman

I was insured...

I am sure I read somewhere that long term benefits claimants are actually a very small minority. So the majority of children affected by this would be children from homes affected by redundancy, or divorce or bereavement.

Divide and concquer. When everyone got CB very few would have said take it away from anyone. Now we have those who get, and those who don't, there are limits to be placed.

Why don't we increase tax on those that own BTL houses, chase tax more effectively? But that would be hard. Hurt the poor they have no voice.

First they came for the poor, but I was not poor so I did not speak out...

Very true longtime.

The same is happening with the wage caps for social rent. I think the figure is currently £100,000 and not even implemented because there are probably

MrsDeVereI strongly suspect that the "taking in your niece" situation would not be covered by the rulesthe government has a strong incentive to try and minimize the number of hard cases, as this would result in very bad publicity.

I'm not saying I am actually in favor of the rules, mind you. It does seem like a really, really hard situation... I have known people who really do play the system. On the other hand, I don't like to think of kids losing out because their parents are shits or just spectacularly unlucky.

eally? you can insure against all possible situations that can arise in life, can't you? I myself am sitting on insurance for 'husband runs off with his secretary' and 'husband falls out of love' and 'husband turns into a complete prick when he meets another woman and leaves us with nothing'.

No you can't, but you can choose to only have 2 children.

We are we arguing based on the very small number of women that will have 3 children whose husbands leave them? How can we have an entire benefits system based on that and why would be.

This is where the anti child cap argument often falls apart. Because people start talking obscure cases that are in the minority. But any benefit system isn't perfect. The one under labour certainly wasn't.

i'd personally have it so that child benefit is higher but doesn't increase with children - re: child benefit as a payment that reflected it was a family household and that that that has costs but at a flat rate so whether you have one or ten children it stays the same. so let's say that that was £30 per week (more than the allowance for one child, less than the allowance for two).

the same with tax credits - i'd make the basic allowances and rates much higher but not increase it further with additional children. so let's say child tax credit instead of being £50odd per child for example was £80 say but that was that. you made your choice whether you could afford more children or not based on that and your earnings. ensure a family with a child is in a secure position and then it's up to them whether to stay like that or take on more expenses by extending their family.

the biggest expense in reality is becoming a family - that reality of having to live in a workable house/flat for example rather than being able to live in shared accommodation and with that the higher rates of council tax, utilities etc. basically having to run a 'proper' household and having to have on the heating etc rather than the single life where you can live more cheaply.

i was on benefits for a while when i was ill and a single mother to my son. despite what people thought i wasn't on masses of money at all and it was very very tight (though i'm grateful) - the idea that if i'd chosen to have another child in those circumstances i'd have seen at least another £70odd a week handed to me despite living in the same house, with essentially the same utilities being used etc is insane. an additional child would have meant a little more food and clothing - nowhere near £70odd more a week! essentially if i'd have had another child my quality of life would have gone WAY UP.

No you can't, but you can choose to only have 2 children.
I chose to have three. My third pregnancy produced twins. I was working and dh was working. Which bit of the insurance didn't pay out when dh became ill don't you get Spartans?

In theory I'd say cap it. I see chb as a bit weird although pleasant bonus. I do think that multiples shouldn't be included. It does happen that first time pregnancies have quads!
I don't see that £20 a week or whatever it is is enough incentive to have a baby. It doesn't even cover costs of nappies! I didn't factor it into our money.

Cadenza it's all benefits we're discussing - not just child benefit. See Honeybadger's post two up from yours. She would have received £70 pw more for a second child.

Can't feed them, don't breed them and Just get insurance are the sort of things I said when I was a foolish young man. I'm still a man, I'm no longer young, but I hope I'm no longer quite so bloody foolish.

I think it should be capped at two pregnancies so that would cover multiple children. Mn seemed to be skewed with the amount of 'mistakes' that happen. Not taking precautions and then blaming it as a mistake, seems to be quite high.

Dawn your twins have already been included. Multiple birth in 2nd pregnancy are included. As is the concept of making different decisions for women who are abused - there was a bit of a flap about that in PMs question time. One well fed white male asking how anyone could tel the difference between an abused/raped woman and one who was trying to screw the system?

His idiocy aside, there is something extremely distasteful in asking the government to frame a law that assumes women are not in control of their own bodies. Asking for a bill to be framed that assumes all women are abused only perpetuates the negative view of women as frail, incapable beings.

There is a difference between being able to amend a decision based on individual circumstances and making the assumption that all women simply must be protected from the uncontrollable vagaries of life. I this am a tad bemused that this is the somewhat pathetic picture some here are painting of women.

Dawn, why did your insurance not pay out?

When we were in the baby-making years, I couldn't have dealt with the financial anxiety associated with three kids. Not particularly the day to day expenses, but the bigger house and the bigger mortgage and how to protect myself against financial insolvency in case of disaster. Now, does this make me unusually responsible and level-headed, or does it make me 'normal'? I'd say the latter.

I'm always a bit taken aback when people say that three kids is not a big family. Of course it is.

Ill health insurance is notorious for trying to wiggle out of paying.

If there is any hint that a condition was known before and has not been declared they will not pay out. DH has had a few health issues that have neen investigated, they still arent sure whats up. I would imagine an insurer would be scrutiniising this with a fine tooth comb for a pay out.

They attempted to sell it to us a few years ago when we got our mortgage and assured us that they paid out for 46 conditions. What if its not one of the 46 I asked.

Glad you commented Andrewfrogg. Reading with incredulity the number of women on this thread advocating penalising women for having extra children to bring up when they find themselves in poverty so that FT unencumbered wage earners, largely men, can pay fractionally less tax.

Rather than denying children benefits, I think we need to target the money more carefully. Free school meals are an example of a benefit the child gets, but the parent doesn't. However the present government doesn't care about children in poverty and just wants to save money.

We could scrub child benefit entirely and have free school meals for every child under 19 in full time education. There could be a means tested element for those in low income families or perhaps free breakfast clubs.

At the moment there is nothing to ensure child benefit actually goes to the child. I save my child benefit for the children's university education rather than day to day living.

If there is any hint that a condition was known before and has not been declared they will not pay out. DH has had a few health issues that have neen investigated, they still arent sure whats up. I would imagine an insurer would be scrutiniising this with a fine tooth comb for a pay out.

I think what you're saying is that they don't pay out for pre-existing conditions. Well, sure. If they did, you wouldn't have any healthy policy holders to support the claimants.

I'm more interested in knowing what kind of potentially devious caveats lurk in the fine print.

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).

Really on the fence with this one. Agree about multiple birth exemption anyway.