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 live in an area like this. The kids didn't have a chance before the cap. The cap has definitely made some women think about having another child - which, quite frankly if you are on/below the poverty line is a good thing.
I like the Swedish approach to eradicating child poverty, which is giving children from age 1 the same, high quality childcare. Mothers on unemployment benefits and asylum seekers are obligated to put their child in nursery from 12 months, otherwise they get their benefits get sanctioned. It's harsh, but it has worked in levelling the playing field and has one of the lowest disparities of childhood outcomes in the world.

I’m honestly not targeting you. But just a personal experience. I’m RC, though don’t practice, so there were loads of big families in my upbringing due to the whole “contraception is a sin” thing. One of my best friends was from a family with 11 children. So she had ten siblings. Mum didn’t work. Dad worked in a factory. They were all brought up in a three bedroom council house. Every single one of them are now professional people with families of their own who are also professionals. Their parents were wonderful people. You shouldn’t judge people by their income. Education is the key to lifting people out of poverty. Those parents were poor but clever and made sure their children read and could count by playing family games with them and taking them all to the library every week. This judging people by their income is insidious and frightening. Some of the thickest people I know are money rich. It’s not something to aspire to.

This is so true. We once had a horse for our only child at a DIY livery £25 a week for stable and field only in 2013. Another horse owner had 4 children, worked for cash in hand, husband worked. 3 of the kiddies had ADHD, one of the daughters rode the pony. They had the full sky package and only went and bought another bloody pony ffs 🤦‍♀️ . Absolutely infuriated me, here we were one child, hubby worked full time, I worked part time, she wasn’t short of money. That PISSED me off big time 😤

Of course we should. Over 30 percent of children in the UK live below the poverty line, including 18 percent who live in absolute poverty. The two-child cap is an extremely cruel policy.

Maybe two kids IS plenty, but what about all the children who are already here and who are suffering from the drop in household income caused by the cap? And what about people whose second child turns out to be twins or even triplets? And accidental pregnancies? People should not be forced into abortions that they do not want. That is cruel.

Not for those whose second child turns out to be a multiple birth, as happened in my family. And if you got accidentally pregnant for the third time and didn't have much money, and really wanted the baby, how would you like to be effectively coerced into an abortion because of the cap? It would break your heart.

A caring society puts children and families high on the agenda, like the Scandi countries. We are not a caring society.

Only from the right. Normal people would be delighted to see six hundred thousand helpless children lifted out of poverty.

Raising taxes in order to provide better public services such as better schools and healthcare, and lifting children out of poverty, are GOOD things!

Presumably you want a better NHS? How do you think that can be paid for without raising taxes? The fact that taxes aren't high enough is why we're in this mess.

So the children can just carry on living in poverty, then?

And it's not an if. Look it up. Over 30 percent of children live in poverty, 18 percent of them in absolute poverty. That's a lot of children suffering. And removing the cap would lift 600,000 children out of poverty, according to the IFS.

Labor raise taxes not to provide better public services but to fund more handouts.

There is a limit as to how much taxes you can raise before you make economy collapse.

UK unemployment rate rises more than expected to 5%

Unemployment is now higher than in coved times and wages stagnating, this is after a few years of booming market, all thanks to Labor.

And yes, you absolutely can improve NHS without extra funding, but you need strong management, the level of inefficiencies and waste there is astonishing.

twins and triplets are excluded from cap, read the policy.

There is no such thing as accidental pregnancy these days, MAP if available as a last resort. It's fecklessness

Funded by whom exactly?

I didn't know that. It's not something that readily comes up when you Google it.

Maybe it is fecklessness, but that doesn't change the fact that there are children in poverty. It's not their fault that their parents had them.

I've often heard about huge amounts of waste and inefficiency in the NHS, but is that really true? I'd be surprised. It wouldn't make any sense for managers to run it that way. (I can look it up.)

Why do you blame Labour for unemployment and wage stagnation? They inherited one hell of a mess.

I agree you can't raise taxes too much, but raising a little from most people would help society a lot, whether child poverty, NHS, schools, etc.

About 1mn of 16-24 yo are NEETs now, it's 12.5% of this age group. Being NEET is a very strong predictor of spending lifetime unemployed and on benefits. They will not contribute to anyone's pensions.

We don't need to increase numbers of young people, we need to improve their education and employability. Supporting families on benefits having more children will not achieve this.

Don't you see the irony of denying free childcare to families with one parent on 100k and forcing them to subsidies UC recipients with multiple kids?

I do agree with this
However I also think that more directed help should be provided to children who need it
I am not sure that lifting the cap would give much relief to children directly as the small amount of money generated from that is likely to just be absorbed into the overall family budget
I always feel sad that there are kids who are excluded from after school activities due to finances and I think that would make a bigger direct impact on their lives so would provide that

They should direct more money at decent school meals and breakfast clubs.
This will not be popular decision

Only for one of them if you have two children already.

And if you got accidentally pregnant for the third time and didn't have much money, and really wanted the baby, how would you like to be effectively coerced into an abortion because of the cap? It would break your heart.

It's the sane decision a self supporting working family would be faced with. We couldn't have another child now because it would stretch us too thin for a decent way of life.

MAP doesn’t always work. It prevents ovulation but if that has already occurred it won’t work. It’s not something that’s 100% effective. Accidental pregnancy is always likely. Condoms break, the pill may not be absorbed due to other factors plus there’s also the issue of non consensual sex.

Wrong poster I think?

In some cases they aren’t even directing ANY money to schools for the proposed breakfast clubs and expecting schools to staff and fund it. To put more pressure on schools to deliver will dilute the actual education they offer. Support needs to be for these children in poverty at home . As I said before no amount of extra clubs and more hours in school can solve issues like cold damp unhealthy housing that leads to poor sleep and more illness for these children, it doesn’t lift some of the burden off parents working in low paid exhausting jobs who are low and stressed, if you want to improve outcomes home is as important as school. Unless you think children should also just sleep at school too and then you can force their parents to work nights too but that’ll be ok as long as it doesn’t affect you. It’s this undercurrent of ‘yes you deserve help but only the help we think is below us you can’t have anything that we have or aspire to’ it’s like when you see people adding to food bank donation areas - always the very very cheapest as if they think they should do something but not anything to make life too comfortable for the underclass. Yes have your tin of beans but not Heinz have you dented tin of value ones but we can still say we are propping up the feckless of society

The children that are already here affected by the cap were born knowing they wouldn't be paid for. Parents responsibility! Twins or triplets are exempt from the cap.

Yes sorry it was about the quote saying about MAP

If a woman is living with domestic abuse, the only person to blame is the husband who is beating her. No funding for refuges.

If someone is a victim of theft, the only person to blame is the person who robbed them. No funding for the police.

If someone is left paralysed by a car accident, the only person to blame is the other driver. No funding for their medical care.

Do you think we should refuse to help all vulnerable people whose suffering is the fault of someone else? Or is it just children?