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?

and needlessly traumatises a child for life by ripping them away from their parents. There's a reason why children are only taken away from their parents as a last resort.

It also isn't going to save any money.

Such a lovely comment, and my thoughts too. And most of those receiving the money are also very hard working people, who just happen to be in minimum wage jobs rather than higher paying careers.

I think this is a reflection of the general attitude on this thread, and more widely, that being poor is some sort of character deficit that can be punished out of people.

@Marshmallow4545 What makes you think people would be interested in health and nutrition advice from volunteers?

What about a proper drop in with professionals like a health visitor / nutritionist / dietitian / community nursery nurse etc? Then at least some effort and thought has been put in to it? Maybe those sorts of things existed in the old Sure Start centres, I dunno.

The Venn diagram of people who want to keep the two child cap as a means of stopping poor people from having children and people who are anti-immigration is a near perfect circle. So just who do you want to pay your pension when the time comes?

Lol. If the Government had any interest in the living standards of people living in the UK then they wouldn’t be crushing any prospect of productivity growth with pretty much every single policy they implement given that productivity rises are the only way to raise living standards sustainably.

Most of the comments are so out of touch. Heard several comments referencing Harry Enfield's sketches depicting poverty and "poverty behaviour". You genuinely seem to have no idea what life is like for most working people who haven't managed to get to into a high wage job. Everything costs more and more, for basic essentials, and the birth rate keeps declining. Saying no to raising 600k+ children out of Poverty because you have an extremely outdated view of their parents being lazy is horrible and you should all feel shame. I'd rather live with the idea of my taxes going towards children (even if some fringe parents will inevitably spend it incorrectly), than on funding war across the globe, protecting paedophiles, our ridiculous defence budget and then bailing out water companies that rip us off, to name a few.

i doubt labour will ever be voted in again, declaring this the same week as tax rises will piss a lot of people off, especially with the current public opinion on immigration when most big families are from other countries.
I think a two child cap is reasonable and I say that as someone who was on benefits for years and had a child at 16 (so a complete scrounger 🤣) once or twice fair enough but how did you not learn your lesson the third time??

In twenty odd years when the dc born today enter the workforce? Be careful you don’t have vast numbers of unemployed wondering what to do as AI does so much.

I usually lean to the right on these issues - was in favour of the benefit reform they backed down on but I do think that this policy needs to be scrapped. Long term the impacts of keeping children in poverty will cost the UK so much more.

AI won't be wiping bums in care homes for one thing.

I think many working parents are struggling too now and there are families receiving the same amount of money in benefits which include free dental care, poll tax reduction, free meals and other reductions because they receive some form of benefit . I wonder if everyone was taxed the same on the total income would it be fairer? I honestly don’t know .

It will replace a lot of other things and then it will be a rat race to get a job like bum wiping to avoid being unemployed

Always the ‘bum wiping’, yeh we don’t need to increase dc today for that.

How will the £3.5 billion go straight back into tax coffers?

If the money is spent on healthy food, children's clothing and gas/electricity then virtually all of this will be VAT exempt or chargeable at 5%. Unless you envisage it being spent on cigarettes and alcohol where you might have more of a case?

The economic stimulus that such a policy may provide is complicated to calculate. We know that giving money to welfare recipients can stimulate the economy to some extent, however we also know that the tax rises used to fund this will have a dampening and shrinking effect. There is absolutely no guarantee that this will have a net positive impact on the economy.

I won't engage with ridiculous talk about showing 'workings'. For all the reasons I explained upthread, you are simply attempting to shut down discussion and alternative ideas. There are multiple ways to skin a cat and work the food bank idea. Food packages, community cafes, additional meals sent from schools etc. Your confidence that none of this is workable just suggests you have an agenda and aren't open to thinking creatively.

Where are your workings to show that lifting the Child Benefit cap will make sure that children are allievietated from the disadvantages of poverty? Not that the household will simply be richer and fall out of the poverty measure but that the child will have more of their needs met and that their future prospects will be improved?

The achievement gap between rich and poor kids has remained the same for young children (those that would potentially be impacted by the cap) over the past 20 years despite the cap being implemented half way through this period. This is also true for kids in KS2. The benefit cap is having no impact on educational outcomes for those kids.

I don’t think posters like that get that ai is going to replace millions of office type jobs meaning all those people will have no choice to get jobs in care homes etc

I was being facetious but the reality is that unless today's workers want a total collapse in their pension funds in 20 years time we do need more people, either being born in the UK or arriving her by immigration. Those who want neither seem to have no clear vision of the alternative. But an ageing population with an inadequate birth rate is no joke, and should scare people a lot more than the prospect of impoverished families getting an extra couple of thousand quid a year.

Yep it’s madness to put in policy now without thinking it through.

To be honest, lots of parents won't be interested in this advice from anyone but the ones that I know that are like this often have a bit of adversion to experts and professionals. They look more kindly on volunteers and people from the community engaging with them. People from a similar background sharing what they have done rather than lecturing them.

The advice doesn't have to be groundbreaking but just the basics of nutrition and what a healthy meal consists of. Portion control etc.

But they will still be in poverty - feckless parents will see to that, they're the ones who get the money.

A poor but decent parent would go hungry to feed their children the best food they can, wear old clothes clothes to ensure their kids get the best clothes they can. They might not be able to afford books but they'll take their children to the library etc. Feckless parents will get an XL Bully and head to the offy.

I find the idea of vast unemployment in twenty odd years concerning enough. Just look at how many jobs can be replaced.

It will happen regardless, but I think policy now should try to envisage the changes incoming.

We don't need more dependents. There is a high likelihood that children born to unemployed or underemployed parents will go on to be unemployed or underemployed themselves. 41% of families impacted by the cap don't have a parent working FT. If you want to create a workforce and sure up pensions etc then the last thing we need is more future dependents being born.

Poor and feckless are not synonyms. I know plenty of feckless middle class parents who hide their fecklessness behind a veneer of acceptability.

I base my opinion on my own family circumstances and that of many other large families I grew up with. My father was not out of the ordinary in a working-class area - it was common practice for fathers to deduct child allowance from what they handed up to their wives, yet this is rarely mentioned/acknowledged.

Two parents can provide for two children far better and far more easily than for 3 or more in terms of emotional support alone. The more children there are, the less support each child receives in terms of resources but also in terms of emotional support, educational support etc.

I believe it is better to provide vulnerable women with other forms of support (state-funded creches / free contraception / etc) than additional child-allowance.

Are you on annual leave today?