Do you think we should life the two child benefit cap?

[Marshmallow4545]

I believe that the majority of people think that the cap should remain and child poverty should be tackled in different ways.

Personally I would like to see children on FSMs allowed free access to after school extracurricular clubs and activities. I would also provide more poor families with access to food banks and would look to stock these with a range of healthy and nutritious options either through donation or state funding if required. I would also look to recruit volunteers to offer advice on health and diet in these places. I would provide clothing and school uniform banks with high quality, second hand clothing that kids would actually want to wear. I have some branded 'fashionable' stuff my kids have grown out of that's still in great condition that I would happily donate.

All of the above in my view is preferable to lifting the cap and would be more effective in tackling the impact that child poverty has on the child.

So AIBU that the two child cap should remain and we should look at other more direct ways to tackle child poverty?

Just to add that Starmer actually stated in 2023 that he wouldn't lift the cap so do Labour even have a political mandate to do this?

I don’t think there is any evidence the cap has stopped people having more children is there? So all it is doing is sending more children into poverty.

Im not disputing there needs to be much more easy access to support for families but I don’t think it needs to be an either or.

Labour stated they wouldn't do a lot of things which they are now looking to do. I don't think having a mandate bothers them.

The cap should remain, especially now as the country is in so much debt.

Personally I would like to see children on FSMs allowed free access to after school extracurricular clubs and activities
Genuinely curious about why. I always considered these a luxury not a need.

I agree with some of it, to an extent. You can get good second hand clothes on Vinted nowadays.

Sadly, if you provide families on very low income the same 'luxuries' than those that people working stressful and longer hours are proud to be able to give their children, you take away the incentive to do so.

Its a hard line to try not to penalise anyone.

All the child benefit cap does is put children in poverty. It doesn’t reduce birth rates of ‘poor people’. Also why are we targeting ‘poor people’ to have less children. People on a good wage don’t get child benefit anyway.

It is an under the table eugenics scheme that hasn’t worked.

I think it's about time we abolish the personal tax allowance and just give every adult a universal basic income (with an extra amount per child).

Means testing and checking for fraud and administrative costs on so many different benefits costs a fortune. Better to just simplify everything and have people pay 20% tax on all earnings.

The labour economy has changed so much recently with 0 hours contracts, got working, and it's about to change again with AI tech and further automation. The old system can't keep up with the new economy and it's only going to get worse.

UBI trials have proven successful and usually lead to happier people who work more as they are not as stressed and burned out knowing they will always have the basics covered. We are a very sick society at the moment and I think stress and depression is a massive contributing factor. Removing the fear of starvation and homelessness will go a long way towards recovery.

They really can’t brake another election promise. Nobody will trust them again!

Agree with @Sirzy . Many people don't take an active decision to have the children they do; and of those who are planning their families, most of those are not deciding whether or not to have children based on child benefit questions. The underlying belief of the policy is that people are having more children because they think it will be a financial benefit. My hypothesis is that the number of people to whom that applies is incredibly small. Personally, as someone who had twins for her second pregnancy this kind of stuff winds me up. (And am at the other end of the parenting scale: I now have three kiddos going to uni at the same time and that is not taken into account when means testing my household, which also irritates me.)

No especially when they’re talking of raising taxes 😡.

Id like to see minimum wage bought up to a level where universal credit is not needed in order to have a basic existance, including one or two children.

More than 2 children, however, is a luxury lifestyle choice that people need fund themselves and that includes considering possible future changes (divorce, bereavement, disability) BEFORE having a third child.

Experts (see CPAG) are generally agreed that the most cost effective immediate measure for reducing child poverty is the removal of the two child cap. I can't think of many things I'd rather my considerable tax contributions be spent on than lifting children out of poverty, so I am in favour.

Your solutions are odd, showing a strong preference for children in poverty being given hand-me-downs and charity. But children's own parents are, in the majority of cases, the ones who know what their children need, and giving them the money directly allows them to provide those things, and with much less social stigma. For instance you think a solution to child poverty might be food banks stocked with nutritious and healthy food, but does that take into account families where there is insufficient money to run an oven for any length of time, or where both parents are in work and would struggle to find the time to go to a food bank, or families with neurodivergent children who will only eat certain specific foods?

There is nothing to stop you donating your children's clothes to charities if you wish, I do so all the time.

Absolutely not. 2 children is plenty when you're relying on tax payers to pay for them.

We should be promoting more personal responsibility, not less.

They attacked the disabled, saying we need to save billions as we are to far in debt only to lift tbe cap & spend more billions on that. It makes no sense - the cap needs to remain. Shame on the goverment.

They are raising taxes and increasing welfare spending. How is that going to grow the economy or increase productivity?

2 kids is plenty. People who don’t receive benefits don’t get a pay tie when they have another kid, they have to plan and budget accordingly.

Labour doing what they always do. Completely incompetent

Children on FSM do get access to HAF activities during the school holidays.

Exactly this, its a luxury having mutiple children.

Besides that many people wont see the lift due to the benefit cap, so its all rather pointless.

I wouldn’t say after school activities are a luxury.

• they support parents to work more hours
• they allow children to learn skills they otherwise wouldn’t
• they increase other self development, socialising, self confidence, friendships, health (if sports related).

Probably not as a priority. If I were going to choose a way to help children in poverty, it would be to raise the FSM threshold to at least equivalent to full time minimum wage.

No way should they raise taxes to pay out more benefits! Two children is enough. Having more than two makes it much harder to continue working so this will only disincentive work, reducing tax income further.

Have you seen the queues for food banks? In my area they stretch round a corner and you have to stand for hours.

You don’t know what you’re going to get and there is a lot of elbowing. You want people with small kids to queue for hours, possibly in the rain, next to drug addicts who are tweaking and being aggressive?

No, the cap should remain. I would prefer to see greater support for disabled people, not people having multiple children.

I'm torn but generally I do think that people should take more responsibility and manage their contraception better.

And yes I know accidents happen.

IFS research indicates removing the two-child cap would lift 600K+ children out of absolute poverty and is the most cost-effective way of doing so.

Donating second hand clothing (which happens in some schools anyway) or running government-subsidised foodbanks isn't a long-term solution which tackles the root cause of poverty; inadequate wages in the face of very high living costs.