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?

If parents are too selfish to put their kids' need first, they are not going to do sp by getting more money.

I agree that the support given to these kids should be outside of the household. It sounds that a number of these families expect both.

I think all children should have free school meals. The threshold in England was stupidly low. Thankfully it is being changed.

Hard disagree. My kids should not be having meals funded by the taxpayer. There is absolutely no need.

I think this is all a moot point. Labour don't have much choice but to change it.

My understanding is that not only do
most of labours backbenchers not want it, but Brigitte Phillipson has been tasked at looking into child poverty and has pretty much concluded that lifting the child benefit cap is likely to be the most successful way of doing it.

I don’t receive child benefit and have no skin in the game but even though I’m likely to be hit by all the rumoured tax rises, that I’d rather help lift children out of poverty than facilitate keeping the billionaires rich.

I would keep it. The country is in debt, taxes are due to to rise and one of the many issues is our welfare bill. We should not be increasing that in any way, it needs reducing.
all children should have fsm across their whole school life, all should have access to extra curricular activities and there are many things like vinted, boot fairs etc for clothes. One of the countries goals should be to reduce our welfare bill not increase it

Lots of schools have initiatives for second hand school uniform and helping poorer families. It shouldn’t need to come from schools.

You say it's cost effective - can you show us the working for that? What are your figures for the cost of means testing and administering your schemes for after school clubs, second hand clothing and food banks? What will be the cost of changing the way foodbanks are run to accommodate your scheme, and who will bear these costs given most food banks are charity-run? In what way are these measures practical when they don't address fuel or housing poverty, two of the major factors in child poverty?

How many children will it lift out of poverty?

Or are your claims that these measures are cost-effective and practical simply feelings you've developed about your own proposal, rather than evidence-based statements of fact?

Oh I totally agree the system is a green light for some people totally expecting the state to pick up the tab, but as I say the children are here now and I certainly would not want any child to grow up in poverty through no fault of theirs.

Its likely to make poverty and poverty behaviour worse. If you can get more money for doing nothing then there is less motivation for education and work.

What we really need is to encourage these families to better themselves. The money should be given to education/ pre school settings so children have a good start abd parents can work.

We need to teach parents about nutrition, budgeting, not using ipads and jumperoos to entertain babies. Put the money into helping people be better parents. Just handing over money to people who are making the poor decision to have more children than they can afford is creating a more systemic problem.

Having children is a lifestyle choice, so people should just have those they can afford to look after properly.

It’ll likely get worse. It’s a bad decision. I think the majority are against anyway.

I think the optics on this will be disastrous if they tax taxes on working people and then give more money to benefit recipients.
It's not the kids fault their parents decided to have more than two children though.
Question? Is the plan to remove the cap completely for increase it to three (or more) children?

Experts (see CPAG) are generally agreed that the most cost effective immediate measure for reducing child poverty is the removal of the two child cap. I can't think of many things I'd rather my considerable tax contributions be spent on than lifting children out of poverty, so I am in favour.

But nobody knows how the extra money will be spent, so the ‘experts’ opinions are useless. I mean, we don’t know now what child benefit is being spent on.

The £5 billion cuts to disability benefits will cover lifting the cap. Disabled people don't have a choice in being disabled but it's more important for families who don't work to keep having children.

The cap should be lifted for people working full time (35+ hours). They shouldn't have to claim UC in the first place.

This is such a revolting, right-wing sound bite. People who don't live in poverty love to believe that those who do are selfish, feckless idiots who don't love or care about their children. If you had even the smallest inkling of what these families are like you wouldn't feel that way. I volunteered in a food bank for years and it would crucify your conscience if you saw the way loving, decent people struggled.

We live in a low wage economy with a severe cost of living crisis and abundant unfair work practices like zero hour contracts and the gig economy and people still smugly cleave to the belief that getting out of poverty is an individual problem.

It is just maths, but you’re wrong in your extrapolation. There will ALWAYS be people/children ‘in poverty’ because it is defined as being in receipt of less than 60% of the median income.
When you pay the bottom earners/recipients more, there’s a shuffle upwards by everyone else. Gaps in earnings are kept to acknowledge varying skills, experience etc. So the pack might reshuffle a little, but there’ll still be people on 60% or less of the new, higher median.
Lifting the 2 child cap will also improve incomes for families NOT in poverty with more than 2 children.

And, anyway, we can’t afford it! We’re already looking at new tax rises (that the government promised not to bring in) including for those currently ’in poverty’. Adding more public spending to the equation is pretty unhelpful.

You think that the majority of parents wouldn't spend the money to make sure that their children are fed, warm and have clothes? Some wouldn't, of course but families like that are always going to exist and they need extra support such as early help, social services etc and that isn't going to be the majority.

Why? It goes completely against their election promises?

We know which households will be impacted by the government removing the two child cap. The government has costed this proposal accordingly. The same form of means testing can be used for any other proposal.

It is ludicrous to expect an individual to have a fully costed plan in the way you suggest. We do know though that food banks are a cost effective way to distribute food into the community. We already know that funding extra curricular club participation can be done cost effectively and is backed by many children charities as an effective means of supporting children in poor households. Clothing can be done in loads of ways, even Vinted vouchers.

If you remove the costs of food, clothing and clubs from families then they will have more money for housing and fuel. We don't need to tackle each individual item separately.

I think the biggest thing the government could do to reduce poverty (and mental health) is stop sneering and people in low paid jobs. These are decent jobs and the people who do them are not failures. They should have a massive council house building programme and working people should be at the top of the queue. Work should pay, it won't cover private housing costs though so poverty needs to be tackled from the other end and people who work, even in minimum wage jobs, need to feel the benefits of that work.

Typical labour, tax the working and reward the non-working.

I think it will be a very patchy picture. Many children fall through the gaps

The overwhelming majority of people receiving child benefit are working.

That’s not all it does though. It saves money. At least in the short term. It tells people who plan their families according to their need that they’re doing the right thing. It stops more families taking more in benefits by having children than they can ever earn otherwise.