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.

That's why we need more children being born to pay for benefits, pensions and healthcare. A small investment in children helps us all in the long term. Or have you missed the fall in birth rate?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/23/birthrate-in-uk-falls-to-record-low-as-campaigners-say-procreation-is-a-luxury

Interesting missed this happening

Googled and see ‘Seven Labour MPs have been suspended from the parliamentary party after voting against the government on a motion to scrap the two-child benefit cap’

You could argue the deterrent is precisely to be able to have adequate resources to support the kids who are already here.

From 2015 when this was phased in, it has been clearly stated.

I get it and agree we don't want children in poverty But people do need to take responsibility for their own individual choices.

Other support initiatives are in place and still being considered.

Exactly. I mean what's the point in trying at all if we're all going to get a divorce then die? Sod it, I'm off to rob a bank.

If a parent is leaving their child unclothed and starving, it would be better for all that the child is permanently removed from the parents care.

Good.

There was so many having kids and abusing the system. They maybe ought to do a 6 month leeway for those who have lost their jobs but other than that I agree not to scrap the 2 child rule.
They really need to look at other factors when it comes to poverty such as the cost of energy pushing up all the food prices!
Good & energy prices come down = less poverty.

I totally agree that all these things should be funded too.

Still doesn’t put food on the table though.

I understand, but children cannot take responsibility for their parents’ actions and choices.

It seems a very muddled message. The state is happy to pay the mortgages of all the buy-to-let borrowers who have tenants on universal credit but won’t invest in its own future population?

Yes, of course, but the suggestion here is that parents should be denied the means to provide clothing and food in the first place.

I listed things upthread I think we should invest in. Given that almost 40% of working age households are net recipients of benefits there’s really no guarantee that additional children will grow up to be net contributors - our economy needs structural change not to be propped up by an ever increasing population.

"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."

But is that necessarily an issue? Why must our population keep on growing?

In fact the ONS said that in 2023 the UK born population only just stayed constant and that growth in the population was just down to immigration.

Serious question, why do we need to increase our population every year?

How do other countries deal with this issue?

Take Japan for example. The last time their birth rate was above 2 was back in 1975. It's been less than 1.5 for more than the last 30 years.

Also, many Japanese people live much longer than your typical Brit so there is a much greater proportion of elderly people.

Japan reached a peak population of 128 million in 2009 and that has since fallen by about 4%.

Is Japan collapsing? No. Are they figuring out ways to deal with increasing numbers of elderly people? Yes.

I also note that South Korea has similar figures. The population there has also peaked. The last time fertility rates were above 2 was in 1984 and the figure is now less than 1.1

Is South Korea about to collapse? I'd say probably not.

Both of these countries are at least a generation ahead of the UK and other European countries in dealing with these issues. We can learn a lot from looking at these countries and seeing what works and what doesn't work.

Does anyone know how I can find out how my local MP voted on this issue?

yes, that’s what she’s saying the welfare state shouldn’t support you. You still should not have had more than two children. No one “needs” more than two kids - it’s still your choice no matter what circumstances come in the future that you can predict. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

https://votes.parliament.uk/votes/commons

No child should be left in poverty in this country. Cameron and Osborne brought it in to satisfy their own ideological cruelty and now a Labour government - a bloody LABOUR government, the one we were told would be so wonderful and look after the most vulnerable in the UK - continues their vile legacy. I have no love for Blair and Brown but they did so much to reduce child poverty and provide opportunity and now we have this Labour government that clings to the cruelest Tory machinations. What have we become?

My exh ran off and left me with 3 small children. The 2 child cap would have meant we starved. Would that have made you happy? Or would you have joined in the scathing looks and contempt offered to me anyway as a single parent? Judgemental people like you make me so angry.

This - you’ve not for years that your child of born on or after 6th of April 2017 (7 years ago) your not going to get more for them.

Even if you could afford to have them at the time, life is unpredictable so why would you have a load of kids you can’t support.

just silly

So shortsighted. I have no children and I pay tax. I am happy for my tax to go towards paying for today's children who will grow up to be tomorrow's taxpayers.

The IFS wrote a good explainer on it. https://ifs.org.uk/articles/two-child-limit-poverty-incentives-and-cost

It would make a huge difference to child poverty to remove the cap and would really help to give families, disproportionately single parent families, a decent shot at life. It’s affordable in the grand scheme of things.

Actually Japan and South Korea have problems due to their low birth rates. Unlike the UK they don't like immigrants and having more elderly than young people means economic growth decreases and they don't have enough people for their military. They also don't have enough people to care for the increase numbers of elderly either financially or in person. (China is also having problems.)

In the UK we can import more young adults, both skilled and unskilled, like we have done for centuries however some members of the UK population don't like this due to the ethnicities of the people we import.

Your ex-husband is self-employed and cooks the books not to pay his child maintenance. Are you saying that the welfare state shouldn't support you?

Im guessing that one of the big contributors to child poverty is separated parents where the absent parent pays far, far below what’s it actually takes to raise a child. I think kids would be better of if there was a government agency who could calculate what the resident parent needs to raise the children (based on reasonable housing costs, food, school expenses, childcare, clothing) and the government pays the resident parent and claims the amount back from the non resident parent. There would be no advantage to men to work low hours, work for cash, be self employed on 50p a year, be a SAHD for his new family etc. it would become an expectation that parents who can’t afford their child maintenance will attempt to increase their earnings, rather than decrease them as it’s a waste earning money only to pay maintenance. Non payment could be prosecuted like council and other taxes are, payment schemes could be in place to pay the debt (with interest) over an extended period, but the child would get what they need, not just the crumbs from mr self employed. I’m sure there are lots of flaws but the amount that some dads pay is preposterous compared to the actual expense of raising a child. No wonder the kid is in poverty when the dad is paying £30 a month. It’s completely arse about face.

If the policy hasn’t led to a decrease in 3rd children being born - and I read on another thread that it hasn’t - then presumably lifting it isn’t going to suddenly lead to an explosion of 3rd babies being born. It just means that the ones that are born are hopefully less likely to live shitty lives.

I do feel like there are better ways of doing it than shoving money at parents as some will inevitably use it on anything but the kids, but I don’t know how that would work.

I wouldn’t bother making the taxpayer argument though - over half the UK population are net recipients and I can’t see that changing for all these kids being born now. We need structural reform before we need a pyramid scheme of increasingly state-dependent people.

Thank U.

And in my wonderful new scheme men actually will be discouraged from fathering children they have no intention of raising because there will be a financial cost that they can’t get out of by working cash in hand. It’s more of a sanction than “in a few years your ex may non be able to get the child element of UC”

Some men would stay to raise their kids they just like to cheat on the side so their spouse/partner rightly kicks them out, and as a result they decide to try to control their ex by not paying for their children. This includes moving abroad out of the clutches of the UK government.

And what would you do with all the children where one parent gets a severe disability or drops dead? (I can only find statistics from 2011 about parents dying leaving dependent children.)