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?

Labour needs to cut the credit cards up and stop spending money that's not in the bank. Cut all welfare and put it towards debt.
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Nothing is being done to help working people. A single person earning less than £30000 now may as well give up work and claim benefits.

Benefits should be treated the same way as charitable aid for other countries. It's an emergency fund to get you back on your feet. Not a long term option.
We have seen that charity does not work. It does not help third world countries to get themselves out of poverty.

No, I do not agree with lifting the 2 child cap. I believe parents should be encouraged to work, save, educate themselves in order to get themselves and their children out of poverty.

I don't want to pay / can't pay anymore tax. I am not taking anymore food from my kids table to give it to someone else...

I thought the government were desperate for money? So they're going to tax everyone more so they can pay people who want more kids than they can afford - and encourage people to stay on benefits by getting paid to have more and more kids.

Nobody wants kids living in poverty but why are people having more kids than they can afford? They're obviously not the most responsible of parents and we're just encouraging them to have more.

I've managed to have sex for 35 years and only get pregnant once, it's really not that hard.

We don't need more kids if the 5% of the population (3 million people plus) who don't work started working. There are plenty of people to go around, what there aren't enough of are jobs. A higher birth rate isn't going to lead to more jobs, it's going to lead to more people on benefits because they can't find jobs.

Sorry you’re right although child benefit has a type of cap as well.

My point still stands however. It shouldn’t be lifted.

This is likely to try and squash MPs who are angry about the breaking of the manifesto pledge.

The electorate won’t take tax rises and benefit increases. They’ve probably given up on what people think entirely, just trying to stay in leadership.

I think they should have lifted it as soon as they came into power, as it’s a cruel policy which has pushed many children into poverty.

No axe to grind as I don’t get any benefits and only have two children anyway. But I do care about people other than myself!

Didn’t the Tories do a great job of making people hate other people. It’s so present in all areas of life now.

You know that “cut the credit cards up” type reasoning and so-called austerity is partly what has got us into the mess we’re in?

It’s been proved not to work.

I think this will politically be very hard to sell at the same time as rising taxes. Many people limit thier children due to finances and they wont appreciate paying extra tax, possibly making the one child they could afford's life a little harder, to let someone else have more.

But morally I dont think leaving children in poverty because of thier parents decisions is a great idea. I also think circumstances change. My husband lost what looked like a secure job when I was 8 months pregnant, it was a bit late to do much about the pregnancy then.

Yes, I know that. But the poster I was replying to talked about replacing Child Benefit with food-only vouchers.

its easy to say that parents in poverty need to work more and educate themselves etc but being in poverty is exhausting. Mentally and physically. Exhausted down to your core. There’s often not the will to go and do a course for example for basic skills. This cap needs lifting first things need to settle and ideally we need sure start back and better funding for things like social services early help .

We also have to take 'child poverty' with a pinch of salt. My previous neighbour, single mum of three kids
I mentioned CB to show how I reached the point of not receiving any government subsidies for me children (except NHS services etc...).

I know you mean well but many children will never have a great childhood because they live in chaotic families not because they are poor though those families are often poor.

Every person makes good and bad choices with money they have some are just better with money than others, The issue with welfare recipients is it’s money from the state. So the argument regarding vouchers does have some validity.

I don’t agree with the cap being lifted and if he does then the threat of Reform just looms larger. Unintended consequence's which has always been the one thing the Labour Party are good at.

DS has a well paid job, was always Labour leaning . when I saw him the other day he spoke about several similarly earning friends looking at moving abroad. A few others have dropped hours at work.

I don’t know of any statistics, but what do we do if this is replicated widely across the country?

Thing is, I don't think anything is going to stop a women like the one you describe having more children. Her life just looks like one of chaos and I feel very sorry for her children.
I think families like this need intensive state intervention to stop the kids going down the same path.

I think there is a need for very targeted strategies for tackling child poverty and ones that circumnavigate incompetent or incapable parents. It may sound patronising and harsh but there isn't an endless pot of money. If raising the child benefit cap is the best and most cost effective way to do it then fine. However, every time more money is spent on one thing it has to be taken away from something or someone else. At the moment our justice system, policing, schools, health service, roads, defence etc. are all going downhill whilst our welfare spending keeps climbing up and up. I think it will have to get extremely bad before people get jolted out of their complacency though.

I think the optics of introducing more benefits for people on very low incomes / no income households who have chosen to have multiple children - while increasing tax for everyone else because we already can’t afford to fund basic services…. are not great.

There is such a discrepancy in cost of living across the country - I live in a HCOL area where people have 1-2 kids because it’s not affordable to house / use childcare for any more, even with two working parents on good wages / not eligible for child benefit (and even childcare support). It then is a bit of a kick in the teeth to get a tax increase to fund someone living somewhere cheap working 16 hours a week and claiming a raft of benefits for a large family IMO.

I agree with you, and I bet she gets into whatever debt is available to her to buy those things.

Id make work pay so that families keep more money instead of around .33p in the every pound earned. I wonder how many of us would work for £3 an hour (not including childcare or commuting costs). As that is the real take home for a parent in UC. I would uncap the childcare element for all children not only 2. Im not against lifting the cap but think other things need to be in place as well, as at the moment work doesn’t pay enough to come off benefits for many.

Birth rates have plummeted. Most parents don't have more than two.

Lift the cap.

I won’t increase my hours, if I do we’ll lose child benefit and all my extra pay will be taxed at the 40% rate (more if taxes go up). Also we have maxed out the funded childcare hours and tax free childcare so would have to pay for an extra days childcare at full rate. We would lose money if I upped my hours rather than gain.

If lifting them out of poverty means ensuring that they are properly fed and living in a warm environment, I would rather that is given directly (re extra food at school, credit fir gas/electruc) rather than more benefits. And extra tuition, football lessons etc and pastoral support to try and change their future outcomes.

Labour did not include the lifting of the benefit cap in their manifesto. In fact they promised the opposite. They said that they wouldn't raise specific taxes and that the benefit cap would remain. People voted them into power on this basis. If they actually believed the opposite then they should have campaigned accordingly and made the argument. If the case is so compelling then maybe they could have persuaded enough of the electorate that the policy is cruel etc. They absolutely do not have the mandate from the public to remove the cap.

All the national polling shows the majority of the population want to keep the cap in place. The poll on this thread reflects this. It's highly likely that if Labour had been honest about their intention of removing the cap then this would have adversely impacted their performance at the last election. Instead they chose to lie, get into power and then impose a tax and spend agenda anyway. They are making a mockery of democracy. Lie and cheat your way into power and then almost immediately go back on everything you promised. Yes, they're not the only party to have ever done this but my god, they are the ones that have done it the most so early into a Parliamentary term.

increasing min wage could lead to jobs being cut though.

i do think having more than 2 children (unless you are wealthy and otherwise well resourced etc) is not advisable. For the vast majority of us (and I include myself), it’s just not viable.

Yes, I wouldn't be surprised at all if those child grow up with depression and anxiety after such a childhood, meaning they're unable to work themselves.