To think the 2-child benefit cap is fine?

[RealHousewivesOfTaunton]

I was surprised to find out today that the 2-child benefit cap doesn't affect the housing element of UC or child benefit. With that in mind, what's the big deal with the cap? Parents need to take responsibility for not having more children than they can afford. The welfare state is still there if things go wrong.

Is there any evidence the cap deters irresponsible people having kids?

Well, I have not understood this debate at all! I assumed it was a cap on child benefits. What other benefits are there that are capped?

I'd rather see the introduction of fsm for all children rather than remove the cap.
Look at increasing the threshold for income tax, breaks for childcare, bring back sure start. School breakfast and afternoon clubs with meals.

Having three children is a choice, I know they are circumstances where situations change, and all of the above would help support that, but UC shouldn't be there to enable people to have more kids than they can afford.

😂

Careful - you sound like you want to have an informed opinion 🤫

It's mainly about the child element of Universal Credit. Which is £287.92 per month per child.

That’s a lot of money. I did not know that.

Child benefit isn't capped
It's universal credit / tax credits thst are capped at two children.

The cases are from:

1. One heard from the radio over discussions of the cap
2. A friend of mine.

People don't seem to understand that we are not producing enough children in the UK.

The birth rate in Scotland is something like 1.39 per woman and in England it is something like 1.49.

I was lucky enough never to have had UC as worked full time. I longed for a third child but my boss would not have increased my pay if I had a third. Still regret not having a larger family, to have gone ahead would have caused poverty for my children. My fellow worker gave up work when she had kids. Both our marriages failed, but she had 3 children on claiming extra benefit for a third child. Can someone please explain why that is fair?
As pp said we cannot send them back, but surely govt could pay for children in existence but not those conceived after claim began

To be fair, in your scenario, the ex shouldn't be able to get away with paying pitiful CMS.

And tbh, that's true of a lot of the circumstances where people suggest we need the benefit cap revoked. CMS shouldn't be about what the absent parent can afford. It should be about what the child needs and those costs split proportionally between the parents. If one / both parents then fall on hard times, that's when benefits should kick in imo.

Life isn't fair.

And actually the UK population needed both of you to have 3 children.

Otherwise we are going to have to import more adults between 22-45 for the workforce.

There are lots of ways - evidence shows that the now defunct Sure Start Centres were a real boost to children from disadvantaged families. You could fund educational opportunities such as trips, sport and music. You can reduce the burden on families for things that routinely cost money when bringing up children - school uniform, shoes, school dinners, childcare etc.

Who feeds and clothes kids during school holidays?

Remember most children in poverty have a working parent.

For many children, unfortunately they wouldn't benefit from an increase. I'm not tarring everyone with the same brush, as I had a major circumstance change in my life so know how difficult things can be, but it's not wrong to suggest that many people will choose to spend an increase in money on themselves rather than their children. Drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, whatever else. Again, not everyone, no, but many.

I don't think this will miraculously resolve child poverty. I didn't think I'd ever say this because I was outraged at PIP potentially becoming vouchers, but if child benefit needs to go to the cost of raising a child, perhaps it should be given in vouchers that can only be spent on food and nappies and not anything you choose. The genuine people who need the money for their children would surely accept this?

As a teacher, I've seen many children living in various states of deprivation and neglect. The extra money would not have been spent on those children.

Also, CMA needs a massive, proper overhaul. There are children living in deprivation due to absent fathers refusing to pay, and it's time this was taken more seriously.

I was pregnant with my 4th child when my husband was injured in an incident at work. We were told the prognosis by the Consultant as I was sitting with a ten day old baby in my arms. Other kids were with gran. We were told he would be in a wheelchair within ten years, there was nothing they could do about the pain he was in and he would not be able to go back to work.

We wee "lucky" in that he was a police officer and received a pension but it was complicated and it took 2 years to sort it out so I had to go back to work earlier than I wanted to and God it was tough as his carer a baby, a toddler and two older ones. If we hadn't had his pension we'd have lost our home and back then there was no two child cap, I don't know how we could have survived with the two child cap.

We can't all see the future.

Do they? Where are the stats for this, please?

Oddly the first report I googled doesn't give stats-
https://www.actionforchildren.org.uk/our-work-and-impact/policy-work-campaigns-and-research/policy-reports/child-poverty-and-barriers-to-work/

It also doesn't define what work is.

Breaking News

On the news it’s been confirmed that Parliament votes against scrapping child benefit cap.

Would it somehow be more "fair", or give you an increased sense of justice if your fellow worker's children were needlessly left in poverty?

As pp said we cannot send them back, but surely govt could pay for children in existence but not those conceived after claim began

So once again, the child, and the siblings of the third child, are the ones punished for the actions of the parents. This is "fair" how, precisely?

This is why the cap is nonsense. It's not deterring people from having children, which would be counter-productive and short-sighted in any case since we have a aging population which isn't being replaced, and the consequence of the cap is that the children, who play no part in choosing to cross the threshold, are the ones punished for the actions of the adults. We also need to dismantle this nonsense idea that people living in poverty are invariably there through choice, fecklessness, or their own irresponsibility. The cap is an ideological pandering to this attitude and resolves nothing at all.

There has to be a way of preventing people for having a huge amount of children on benefits without penalising people who have fallen on hard times, had a change of circumstances etc.

Well at some point surely a parent has to pay for something? Are you suggesting the taxpayer has to feed and clothe every single child 24/7 now?

Are you suggesting "the taxpayer" should leave children unclothed and starving if the parents don't provide?

A couple of people have said no one can predict the future but no one can predict that things will go well either so why assume that they will? Something like half of people will get cancer at some point, around 1 in 10 children/1 in 4 working age adults has a disability, a third of marriages end in divorce etc… why are many people not thinking about what would happen if such common situations happened to them?