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?

It's nothing to do with child benefit
It's the child element of universal credit which is significantly more than child benefit, there has never been a cap for child benefit.

Viewing it as hand me downs and charity is odd when it is simply targeted, practical and cost effective intervention. Most kids now go around with second hand clothes due to Vinted. The term hand-me-down is from a past generation that saw second hand as second best. Times have changed. Children being able to access extracurricular activities would have a huge benefit to them.

Food banks would have a range of options that could be time effective and cater to different needs. There is a strong link currently between deprivation and childhood malnutrition and obesity. This would be the most effective way to tackle it.

Removing the benefit cap would in effect be state enforced charity.

@DoAWheelie I am very well paid and so is DH. We started with nothing and have slaved in horrible jobs to get where we are. We had kids late in life due to lack of funds and career pressure. I hate my career. We have never had benefits to boost our income. We lived in a shared house until we could afford to marry.

If the government gave everyone a UBI now, I would instantly pack in my job especially if there was an uplift for kids! It would be like getting a retirement income early. I’d be absolutely thrilled.

I agree! Having more than two children is indeed a luxury. If parents choose to have more than two children they should carefully consider whether they can actually afford to have them.

Since when has any Government - of any political side - ever felt held to pre-election promises. And I think it’s very different when you get into Government and see the true extent of the shit the country is in.

I can’t bare to see Tories bleating on about what ought to be done when it’s their fault we are where we are. I’m not saying anyone else would have done any better. But Tories did do shit.

We need to tax companies properly. There’s loads of money floating about somewhere.

Absolutely do not lift the cap. The country can't afford it. Reeves surely can't say we can afford to increase welfare payments but then say she has to raise income tax. That makes no sense.

Depending on school, a lot of extra curricular activities are free or definitely offered as free to selected students (I recall paying for my son to do football a few years ago with an external provider and was talking to another parent who told me how great it was for them to offer training for free!). Generally my children's school now do all clubs for free, even if it is an external provider. Unfortunately the uptake doesn't always get to the groups that you are thinking of. Same with the HAF schemes. They target certain groups but often these groups for some reason do not access them. More research should be done into why.

My belief is that child benefit should be given as vouchers which are restricted in how they are spent. Yes this is very nanny state, but there is always a perception benefits are spent on alcohol, vales or cigarettes so to me if they were given as a generic supermarket voucher that could be used in any store but only in food items then this would shut up the haters and ensure that all children have a contribution to food.

Absolutely not. If children are living in poverty, the only people to blame are the parents that had them knowing they can't afford to look after them!

If the parents are irresponsible enough to keep having more children they cant afford, then more money from the government is hardly going to be spent wisely, is it?

The thing that so many people fail to grasp, is that disadvantage is more than being poor. It's a state of mind and tied in with sub culture. As distasteful as people might find the 90s Harry Enfield sketches now, The Slobs sum up this 'culture' pretty aptly. I'm having a faaaag.

I thought the birth rate in the UK has slowed right down in the UK? There may be many factors behind that, but can it be disproven that the benefit cap hasn't played a part?

47% of households with child poverty don't have one parent working FT. It isn't just about low wages but also about people not working at all or not working enough.

Would UBI not just lead to rampant inflation?

It's an impossible one to solve really. Yes there are some families who pop out far too many children for them to be able to financially support within their own means but those children are here now and no child should grow up in poverty.

If Reeves raises our taxes and uses that money on benefits for parents with more children that they could afford, I think there would be a lot of anger and outrage!

And it is also unfair to the ones just " slightly above". I'm speaking about the families maybe earning £20 about the limit to get all these freebies.
So a child from a family with £20 less gets a load of freebies throw their way which are worth far more than the £20

There is a thing called Essex Activate that runs holiday schemes for the kids who qualify ( something to do with pupil premium" Yst many kids take up places and dont bother turning up regularly. Their parents aren't working so no need. Yet there's other kids who could make use of this scheme who don't qualify yet the families have less money

I agree. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.
If people want more than two children, then they should pay for them as others do who are not entitled to any benefits.

There will always be demand for free things, even when people dont necessarily need them.

It never should have been put in place in the first place and the research says that it is the easiest way to lift many children out of poverty.

I don't care about the parents choices, I care about lifting children who didn't ask to be born out of poverty.

The priority should be on reducing taxes.

This will be another benefit that will disproportionately go to migrant families

But this is because poverty is measured against the median household income so of course if you pay the bottom households more it will take them out of so called poverty. It's just maths.

What I'm interested in is what best alleviates the impacts of poverty for the child. In what ways does being poor adversely impact them and how can we best tackle this? It often comes down to food, energy bill, access to extra curricular activities and clothing etc. Basic needs. Some parents may spend the extra money on this but many won't. We then will have kids in non-poor households who are suffering just the same.

But unfortunately it would also encourage more parents in the future to have children they can’t afford, as it acts as incentive to have more children

I suggest it’s best to give the current children help in other ways (vouchers for clothes etc)

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)
I disagree. It doesn't help parents working because they still have to take their kids to these activities.

The skills learned can be learned elsewhere. Everything you cite is available during g school hours.

It really is a luxury. As already stated, there already are schemes during the Summer.

Sorry but extra curricular and sports are not luxuries. They are a very beneficial educational extra.
keeping the children in sports, single or team, for as long as possible is better for their physical and mental health, it teaches them to strategise, sportmanship, drive and focus. It helps for those driven to stop them drinking and staying up in all hours.
those very competitive do also better in school as they dont have much time so have to learn to be efficient and organised.

if libraries are accessible, extra curriculars should be accessible too.

@Marshmallow4545 never thought about it this way but i very much agree with you. If you re on FSM, you should be allowed to access extra curiculars

Reeves promised NOT to raise taxes and to REDUCE the welfare bill. Let’s not forget that.

The tech on closed loop payment cards and reloadable gift cards is good enough that you can control what product categories that money is spent on. Allowing someone freedom to spend it on meat, fish, vegetables, milk for example, but not on tobacco, electronics, alcohol and the like.

Id have no problem in raising child related benefits if it was done in this was and you were more certain that money was being spent on the children in the right way.

I know it's unfashionable, and we should want people to have choices and autonomy. But personally I would feel much more generous if with benefits we paid utilities, rent and the like direct, and steered food and other spending in the necessary direction.