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?

I hope someone from the Labour party reads this thread and looks at the poll. Almost three quarters of people don't want the cap lifted. Many of these people will see their life meaningfully adversely impacted by the imminent tax rises. A link will be made between these two things and people will be beyond angry that their money is being used to fund something they absolutely disagree with. This isn't the way to build a cohesive and compassionate society. Resentment and anger will bubble over.

Exactly. I remember a few years ago on twitter someone demanding an NHS for pets/vets. How silly.

You can't choose whether to be disabled, or elderly, or ill, but you can choose the number of children you have

Children don't choose to be born, least of all into poverty. But you want them to be the ones to pay the price for other people's choices. The most vulnerable members of our society - who can't earn money, advocate for themselves, vote or improve their station. They're the ones you think should pay the price.

Do you think fourteen years of Tory austerity left the country more cohesive and compassionate?

It is 100% on the parents.

For a myriad of reasons it’s impossible to 100% plan not to have more than two children, unless ever man in the country is going to have a vasectomy.

Triplets as a first pregnancy, Catholics, marital abuse etc

I think pushing children into poverty is wrong.

Twins and triplets were always exempt from this policy

Yeah why can't they put them in the workhouse?

This thread is absolutely horrendous.

Labour don’t care about any of that though, Reeves is just trying to appease those pesky backbenchers.

I know - expecting random strangers to pay for other people's lifestyle choices. Horrific.

Allowing children to live in poverty because it doesn't directly benefit me - Horrendous.

I mean someone has to. You need a bit of it to prevent moral hazard and people expecting the taxpayer to fund their kids.

You could also take their children away.

I don’t think public opinion should prevent whatever government of the day doing something that is morally right. The Labour Party have a long history of working to end child poverty. (Gordon Brown and Sure Start for example) The U.K. voted Labour in. If we are all for taking personal responsibility then this is what we voted for : an end to austerity.

Government is about society.

Government seems to be about taking people's own money off them at the moment. What next, selling their own home to fund their care in old age....oh, wait..!

and what would that do, exactly?

Children in foster care cost money too.

Child allowance for large families can seem attractive to people who are poor but long-term it makes the problem worse as it encourages the poorest to have more children than they otherwise would.

Children from large families are more vulnerable at every level and have less opportunities due to less resources and parental time/support.

Also, it facilitates some fathers not providing for their family as much as they should - my own father deducted the amount of child-allowance my mother got from what he handed to her each week and spent it on himself instead.

Many men keep women "busy" with lots of children as a means of controlling them. This happens far more than the other way round but is rarely commented on.

I do support child allowance for up to 2 children as parents need support but not encouragement to have more children than they can afford or support emotionally, educationally, etc.

Day off?

So in both cases the child still exists but in the second case the parent experiences the effect of irresponsibility and not financially planning and/or family planning

What he actually said was that labour wouldn't make unfunded promises in their manifesto (I.e. the promise to remove the cap). He identified the cap as one of the areas where Labour might have to make tough decisions, by keeping it place. He made no pledge to lift the cap. This is not the same as a manifesto pledge to keep it, no matter what you say.

Just in case this isn't clear to you, where a party doesn't make a specific pledge in their manifesto, it is not the case that there is an implied promise to do the opposite.

I'm not even a labour voter FFS, I'm a member of a different party altogether, but the ignorance or sheer dishonesty on this thread is infuriating.

It tallies with YouGov on this too. I expect dissatisfaction will increase if coupled with more tax hikes.

I don’t think Starmer is thinking of the electorate, more keeping backbenchers happy so they don’t oust him.

It doesn't encourage people to have more children, there is no evidence of that at all.

And the fact that the removed child is absolutely traumatised is what, just unfortunate collateral damage?

This.

I don’t think a lot of Mumsnetters realise just how much we provide for free as a country - even if you have never worked a day in your life you will receive:
Free and unlimited medical care
An adequate roof over your head
Money for food
Free education for your children
Free school meals for the children
Free parks, libraries and other facilities
Free emergency services you can call anytime you need them

People also forget it is now very easy to access cheap or free items if you need them - Marketplace and Vinted didn’t exist when I was a kid, there was a primitive form of EBay but if your child needed new shoes, you had to go to the shop and buy them new, or otherwise trawl charity shops in the hope of finding something (unlikely), and probably buy a bus ticket in order to do that anyway. It’s never been easier to clothe your kids and furnish your house cheaply.

Also, and I know people will object to me adding this, but I can’t think of any families who are the type this benefit is targeting (skint and too many children) who aren’t already heavily topped up by UC, DLA and PIP. People with lots of children, where there is a diagnosis in the mix (and there is more often than not), can easily receive more in benefits than a person working full time for an average wage.

So no - I don’t think the taxpayer should be funding this.

Actually it’s not sufficient for replacement level population, obviously.

That’s why the policy I suggested above which recognises the costs of raising dependents for all families while also incentivising rather than disincentivising work is a better solution, and is the kind of approach adopted in most other European countries.

Nobody bothered to respond to that post though, they’re too busy having ideological scraps to engage with evidence-based policy solutions that have been shown to work.