Labour are lifting the 2 child benefit cap

[PuppyKeep]

AIBU that this is a terrible decision?

I'm dreadung this budget, as someone working but on a low wage. I can't afford to pay more tax.

I don't want kids in poverty but I don't think this was the right choice. Possibly lifting it to 3 kids, extra help via vouchers, summer schemes, more affordable childcare etc. I know someone with 6 kids. She's disabled(her fiance is her carer). i dread to think how much they will be getting. She had her last child after she was diagnosed, just why? Because they wanted another apparently. I don't want those kids in poverty of course not but it's hard not to feel annoyed about how much money they are taking from thr state because of their stupidity.

Because the first responsibility of parenting is to feed your children.

The general advice for decades has been to have 6 months income in savings as a sensible buffer.

Yet I imagine many of you probably benefited from free school meals so why begrudge others?

I've read some heartless things on here, but that takes the biscuit. Cold hard misanthropy- on a parenting website!

And yes I'm very happy for my taxes to lift children out of poverty, and I am a childless higher rate tax payer. Children are an asset and deserving of our care and support as a society.

That was the case until they realised how impossible it was to enforce. It also gives the absent or NRP a lot of power over the RP since they literally would be reliant on them for basic bills..not a great situation to be in if the relationship was toxic or abusive. There have been many threads on how difficult it is to obtain proper maintenance from NRPs and there is no political will to do it. Also, whilst I did work as a SP full time from when my kids were 4, it was a v hard slog and my kids spent a lot of time in after-school care. Even as teens, there's too much making their own dinner and messaging each other. We want young people to be well socialised, secure in family life, feel loved, but demonise RPs who don't work ft to provide that.

I haven’t been able to go through every reply on this but I’m really am unhappy about it.

but if it is going to happen I think the whole thing needs reform.

the state is not a defacto parent providing for the children. That should be the parent’s responsibility. Therefore the parents should be made to provide first and then the state tops up.

both parents need to be working full time before they can be topped up on benefits. I went back to work when my babies were 6 months old out of financial necessity so my view that both parents need to be working then and the money should go into subsidised childcare.

the amount of top up after that point should be on a case by case basis rather than an automatic right to benefits.

I do think a parenting loan scheme like the student loan would be a good idea. Those who need the money now can take out the loan, and when the children are older or left home they could repay it. It would help to alleviate the short term issue of children living in poverty but ultimately leave people responsible for their decisions.

You could come up with a system that separates the two. The state would fund the RP, then would effectively put in place debt recovery action against the NRP.

I mentioned that people are financially disinsentivised to have children, which is a societal problem. The cap is/was a small part of that. I welcome it being scrapped but its a fraction of the change that's likely needed.

No you only get free school meals at state schools.

This is precisely my point. For decades, it was the advice to have 6 months income for a rainy day fund, and that was something that normal working people could achieve if they were careful. That's simply not achievable for so many families now who are working just as hard and being just as careful. The situation has fundamentally changed and people need to acknowledge that.

Also, so many of the things on my list would not resolve after 6 months. What do you do when your spouse is still dead 6 months later and the money has run out?

The cynical in me thinks this is for labour to gain/retain voters who might be swayed by reform on immigration but realise they will cut their benefits. People are much more willing to accept the diversity if their lives are better and have more money, they don’t look to blame something or someone else for their shitty lives.
Also they need more children to be born, if the birthrate continues to decline there will be no one working to pay for anything
No one wins when children live in poverty least of all the children who don’t ask to be born into that life. However who knows how it will be paid for, they made such a song and dance about cutting welfare and getting everyone back to work because there was no money. I just hope they don’t look to take it away from the disabled

I don't agree with that logic at all. I have four DC aged between 18 and 8 and I have been a SAHM for 17 years for various reasons. Two of the four needed lots of different input from health professionals from a young age. I don't have time to work and no employer would put up with all that time off caring. I am classed as a carer to three out of four DC to date.

I don't sit about watching TV all day but I am an OU student so learning whilst they're in school. I have a degree to complete to help with personal development. I also have chronic health conditions. So I do the best I can under difficult circumstances.

Don't judge if you don't know the circumstances of others. Well done you though. I applaud those who can get out and work for those of us who cannot for various reasons.

Nobody should be financially incentivised to have kids, you have kids if you want them and you can afford them, there should never be a system that pressurises people to have kids! Let alone tell them how many they should have based on income! Concentrate energies on these large benefit families that are all over the UK and make sure those kids grow up to be people who work and contribute!

To be clear - are you implying that you were privately educated, but begrudging kids in poverty a free lasagne at lunchtime?

There was child poverty before the cap. The cap was introduced to try and influence behaviour of parents who couldn't afford the children they were having - remember it was only applied for future children.

What we have learnt is that there is a group of parents who just don't give a shit if their children will grow up in poverty they will still have them anyway.

Sorry you seem confused - will this policy lift children out of poverty or not? If it will lift children out of poverty who is there to begrudge the lasagna to? Or do you think the parents will spend the money on something else and the kids will still be in poverty.

You have highlighted the key point in your comment.... "and you can afford them".

Trying to ascertain if the people on this thread are miffed because they think the two child cap is fair, or because they don't qualify for it at all and don't believe those who do should receive more?

Reform already offered this so it’s the same re this benefit.

Reformists? What have the far right got to do with this?
You think everybody gets treated equally by the benefits system? I was unemployed for four months last year, I'm mid 40s and in a skilled profession so it's not like I haven't paid into the system all these years. Do you have any idea what it's like trying to get any financial support if you have a partner that works and no kids? I was allowed the princely sum of £75 a week but I couldn't even claim that as I wasn't allowed to claim and go away overseas for 5 days on the trip my partner for my birthday, I was told to rip up my CV and do a fake one suggesting I was just a basic admin, I had to look for basic admin work up to an hour and a half away! Somehow do and evidence 35 hours a week job searching! It was completely impractical and for a tiny morsel of money! Don't dare lie that everyone gets helped by the system because they don't! There's certainly no bereavement benefit and if there was, lots of scammers would try and claim it! The system makes breeding lucrative but everything else! Not so!

I think situations where you are a carer is very different to a situation where you aren’t. That is the case by case basis

but you do have 4 children though. That was a choice. Only had 2 because that was all I could afford. I would have loved to have had more but after going through our salaries and strategising what would happen if the worst was to happen to one of us, we decided that we couldn’t risk having any more.

Hold onto your hat... I believe that as one of the largest economies in the world, we should be able to distribute wealth in such a way that all children get a nutritious lunch in school AND families who are struggling get an extra bit of support to keep the heating on. The benefits on offer are still at a level where it would be extremely tight for families, so even with the cap lifted, school meals should be offered - I never want a child unable to learn well in school due to hunger.

There are plenty of ways they could have changed the CSA (as it was) system to have much better enforcement.

Back when RP's on benefits were allowed to keep only £20 a week and the rest of maintenance was owed to the Sec of State the amount owed to the SoS got so ridiculous it was declared that something had to be done.

Despite all the options at their fingertips that government - and every one since who've done nothing to change it - decided to let people keep the money that the knew mostly wasn't being paid

There is no political will, from any party, to tackle the shambles that is CMS. It's not even down to the staff there either - when I worked their briefly I asked the person training me when we'd learn about certain powers (I happen to know about them because if my non paying ex) and the trainer didn't even know CMS had those powers.

I was told off for refusing a non-payer extra time to pay. Apparently refusing an extension was "aggressive and unnecessary" - not my manner, or my following process, that was all clarified to be fine, but granting an extension is normal - when he hadn't paid a penny for four years.

No party has touched it because there is, imo, still that mindset for so many people of women (and it is mostly men who are non payers) who end up as single parents being feckless and greedy. Until societal attitudes to non-payers change then political will won't change.