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?

But not everybody has two children. You need a decent number of people having more than two to account for the many who have one child, or none.

Exactly this. @DifferentforgirlsIf you’re so appalled by the level of poverty around you and lack of empathy shown by others how about you donate your savings to charity, maybe remortgage your home and donate some of that to the less well off too, and survive on much less than you obviously are now. Or you’re happy just to give away other people’s money?

The only ones I could see doing this are the addicts who probably should've had their kids removed into care.

Why? Surely the old model is going to be disrupted. If too many of those young people aren’t working in a couple of decades they’re not paying taxes, and will need support to live.

Yep.

They have that issue with food stamps in the US.

Because it’s still an ok thing to do to have another child after having one with additional needs? Only the family in question can accurately decide if it’s what is best for them. I don’t think we need to be putting blanket bans on new babies just because they have an older sibling who has a disability.

The child I had after DS2 isn’t disabled and the child I before him isn’t disabled. And when I had my 4th (who wasn’t planned) we were in a good place because DS2 was in school, thriving and happy, and so I felt ok having this unexpected baby. She is also doing very well.

Vouchers have actually been proven to work effectively. Look at SNAP in America.

The fact that they have this issue in America doesn't mean the scheme isn't effective. It is. It has reduced food insecurity by 30%.

Except for when there's a government shutdown, of course.

You say yourself that you are a financially comfortable homeowner, and then say you don't understand why people wouldn't want to pay over and above what they are already paying with the insane cost of living, to fund other people's children when they cannot afford to have them or have as many as they would like? You call them obsessed with money because they don't want to give it away when they are already struggling, so that other people can have a family larger than they can have themselves?

I think you could do with a bit more empathy on a wider scale, not only focused on one section of society.

We don't have the same democratic system as America so it's irrelevant

Good for you that you’re comfortable off, with savings, private pensions etc! You are happy to pay more taxes to increase benefits, but the vast majority of us are not in such a comfortable position.

I absolutely do not want to pay any more in taxes to support families that choose to have more children than they can afford. We purposely limited the number of children so that we can support them financially and emotionally.

Labour promised not to raise our taxes and to cut the huge benefits bill! Let’s see how well they can be trusted???

So what you’re saying is, the benefit cap should stay so that decent parents can go hungry to feed their kids? Something plenty of working parents are already doing?

Cool. Cool, cool.

I wasn't always in this situation - I am here because I worked hard and was fortunate that I married a man with the same values as me. At some points when we were younger we were paying 17% mortgage interest and for nearly 10 years of tory austerity got no pay rises in line with inflation, so basically pay cuts that also affected said pensions.

I have NEVER blamed our hard times on people who were having harder ones. There are a few people on here emotionally unwell - I'm not one of them because I don't get angry or resentful about people who are having a worse time than me.

And btw, as a pensioner who pays tax, but no NI, I'll be one of the people worse off.

Just to be clear also, I am 61 - long time away from receiving the state pension.

We need to redefine what "child poverty" is as it is a relative term whereby income is 60% below the medium. So there will always be children in so called poverty.

I'm not saying that there aren't any children in poverty but it needs to be an absolute term meaning not being able to afford food, heating, uniform or whatever. Given how generous benefits are, I struggle to understand how anyone is in true poverty without huge mismanagement of finances.

According to social media a lot of non essential businesses like fast food and nail salons accept SNAP payments.

A system like that here would end up with a political donor making billions because of the inevitable corruption with government contracts. I don’t want an already successful business like Tesco or Amazon making money out of it either- the data alone would be £££.

I think they could raise it to 3 children.
Has anyone mentioned that the two child benefit cap doesn’t apply to Child Benefit!!!
You can claim Child Benefit for however many children you have!!

@Differentforgirls you have a comfortable lifestyle. Many families who aren’t eligible for these benefits don’t have a comfortable lifestyle yet will be taxed more to pay for others. It’s not that people don’t have empathy it’s that they are also struggling financially. The holiday they take each year is off the back of missing school plays, not being there at pick up, making pack lunches with no fsm or free breakfast club and saving every penny.
I am comfortable, I lead a nice life but it’s one I worked bloody hard for. I was a single mum, not entitled to much benefits at all, breakfast club had to be paid for, pack lunches made after a long shift at work. I was working and I was poor, sharing a bed with my dc so we only had to heat one room at night, skipping meals myself and dishing up frozen fish on Xmas day because that’s all I could afford. You’d look at me and say I was doing ok but I wasn’t, I was struggling financially a lot and to have taxed me more then would’ve made a huge difference and that’s how many people are now - they are struggling and can’t afford to lose more tax out of their pay for an increase in benefits for others.
It’s not about empathy, most people feel that but when it’s a choice between them having a little money out of their wages or paying more into our welfare bill then they are going to choose the former and quite rightly.

If they can afford to lift the cap - great news. I assume this will mean there is enough money kicking around to not increase income tax. Happy days.

You're not a pensioner until you're 67 though, at your age? If you've stopped working and are funding your unemployment then fine but at the moment you're "unemployed" not a pensioner.

Completely agree. The cap should not be lifted. I can't believe Labour are saying the country has no money and we'll all have to pay more in tax, yet give more money to those who knew the cap was in place but chose to have more kids anyway. Labour are so disappointing.
I agree with increasing FSM as that directly gives to the child. To those who say parents know best what to spend their income on, sadly many don't spend it on their children. I've seen it first hand... smoking, drinking, nails done, huge TVs, but not a scrap of food in the cupboards for the poor dc or a proper bed to sleep on. Parents don't always know best or even care.

Yes being in poverty is exhausting. But so is working full-time with two kids and feeling like every month you have less and less money available. Not able to save, fill the fridge, not able to fix the roof, not able to fill the car.... because the col, mortgage hikes and insane tax keeps working families living in their overdrafts.

Im on a decent salary and feel utterly broken and broke! I can not pay for other peoples children right now... come back when I've paid for mine.

What do you mean by ‘a total collapse in their pension funds’? Do you mean State Pensions? Because if so, that boat has already sailed. State Pensions will no longer exist long before then. We can’t afford them.

The sooner people realise that they need to provide for their own old age, the better.

So we are Billions in the red, can’t remember quite how much, somewhere between 30 and 50 Billion, and taxes have got to go up for everyone at the budget, but somehow we’ve got the means to expand the benefits bill even further. The lunatics really are running the asylum!

Exactly this!

Labour promised to not raise taxes. I’m surprised that there’s so much money available for this?!