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 am really on the fence with this one.

Outcome primarily depends on the mother and her level of education.

Child poverty is an economic measure judged against median household income. It doesn't take account of the child's actual lived experience and whether they have access to basic essentials.

You therefore can automatically technically drag loads of kids out of poverty by giving their parents free money. This will be particularly effective if you can tax richer households to do so therefore reducing the median income you're comparing them to. The fact this free money could be spent on anything the parents fancy is completely ignored. Yes, there will be responsible parents but there also will be a hell of a lot of irresponsible ones.

Most of my friends either don't have children or have 1 or 2. Only one of them has 3. All are moderate earners. Why the hell should they have money taken from their kids (via their parent's tax) to pay for others?

It is means tested, as is UC.

At the end of the day I believe it's a no win situation, I agree with the 2 child cap but it doesn't stop feckless parents having more kids and then it's these children that suffer.

I would like to see much more use of the sanctions available for fathers who wont pay for their children, including the removal of passports and seizing assets. A higher threshold for free school meals and auto-enrolment for children. Breakfast clubs to help children have the right conditions to learn.

The removal of the 2 child limit is less popular with Labour voters than Labour activists. I dont believe voters will generally want to pay more tax for it and think it would be stupid to do it now.

In Wales they have introduced free school meals to all primary age kids, and there is a campaign to extend this to secondary. They have phased it in to allow time for increased catering capacity. Probably the most cost effective and least bureaucratic way to ensure every child gets a hot nutritious meal 5 days a week 39 weeks a year.

LET THE CHILDREN STARVE!

That's on the parents.

Working FT in a stressful job is bloody exhausting. Mentally and physically. Who on earth would choose to do this if you can get enough money to live a reasonable life relying on benefits?

I can't believe you're suggesting that poor people are too ground down to work or better themselves. This would give any ordinary, loving parent motivation to work as hard as possible to build a better life.

I know an awful lot of families living in poverty and lots of the parents don't work and enjoy their lifestyles. They don't suffer in poverty. They go to each other's houses and have enough money to buy vapes and cigarettes. Their kids suffer though for sure.

They won't starve. Nobody is suggesting this.

They definitely are going to scrap it based on Reeves’s interview on 5live yesterday. The deputy leadership campaigns made it a dead cert.

They’ll owe the MPs who lost the whip over the issue a big apology, which won’t come, and they’ll have a hell of a job explaining to everyone else whose taxes are going up why some people are allowed as many kids as they fancy while most people have to actually plan their families responsibly.

"Personally I would like to see children on FSMs allowed free access to after school extracurricular clubs and activities"

When you say 'free access' you realise that means tax payer funded access right?

But to answer the question no I do not think that they should lift the cap.

I thought another of her manifesto pledges was to cut welfare - so this will be another one broken. This isn't just not cutting welfare, it is increasing the bill.

It would be ridiculous to get rid of the cap. We need to provide extra support for people who really need it, not blanket coverage meaning we're wasting tax payers' money that we don't have on families that don't need it.

They are losing credibility so quickly. Blanket removal of the winter fuel allowance was the wrong thing to do but means tested assistance was the right thing to do. Why announce, take all the criticism then go back on it?

I voted for Labour and I really, really thought they would improve things but they just seem to be lumbering from one terrible decision to another. The worrying thing is I think they're probably still the safest hands we have when you look at other parties.

I am a ''leftie'' but I don't want to see the child benefit cap lifted.

Having a large family is usually a choice, especially at a time when people struggle financially to afford one or two children.

We already are an overpopulated world and don't need large families on benefits.

I would instead focus on education/schools so that these kids have a good start in life and have the skills to lift themselves out of poverty and on supporting unemployed parents to get back into work.

There is plenty of support already to access free contraception and advice on family planning.

It is just not fair on tax payers to be asked to support people's feckless life choices.

Problem then is though, we make it economically more viable for those in low paid work / not working to have more children…

… while taxing to death the middle classes, who are still then going to opt for smaller families as they aren’t any better off as a result of these policies.

Problem is, babies aren't so hot on personal responsibility. They kind of just go with what their parents can provide them.

The early years are essential to creating children who are happy, productive members of society. The more heavily we invest in this part of children's lives, the less we will have to spend on catching up or fixing the mess a shit early years can result in.

There are certain circumstances where the benefit cap does not apply, for example, if there is a disability benefit in payment in the household Universal Credit will not be capped. I would be interested to know how many households aren't capped due to this. It's likely being put in to place before PIP rules get stricter as more households will be capped as a result.

I think throwing money at the problem will be far less effective than considering, meaningfully, what children in poverty are disadvantaged by and addressing those directly in practical terms.

Nobody is saying that more child benefit would enable them time to cook better food or enroll their kids into clubs; sadly it gets eaten up by what parents prioritise during cost of living.

Perhaps funding cafes to work an extra hour to cook food bank food and distribute it so kids get healthy meals.
Funding a shoes/uniform or other clothing package.
Warm home credit's directly to energy companies.
Free vitamins for schools.
Free clubs (because if you're skint, you're never going to prioritise that and the child really would benefit from mixing outside school)

I don’t get child benefit so why should my taxes be used to pay people if they can’t be bothered to get jobs that pay £50k.

My brother doesn’t have any kids so why should his taxes be used to pay for schools,

My partner hasn’t seen a doctor for about 20 years. Why should his taxes pay for the NHS?

We could go on and on. Lots of people don’t immediately benefit from the taxes they pay.

No, but I think we should move towards replacing child benefits with an additional tax allowance for those with children that is scaled up depending on the number of child dependents. This would recognise the additional costs involved in raising a family but encourage rather than discourage work at the same time. This should be done at the same time as moving towards a household unit basis for all income taxes so that two households with the same income are not taxed wildly different amounts simply because of the division of earnings between the adult(s) and therefore remove a lot of perverse incentives and economic distortion.

I know lots too. The ones I know put their children first, even if it means going without food themselves and walking in the rain with soaked feet because their children got the new shoes, not them.

They don't smoke and they don't vape. They also work incredibly hard, either in poorly paid jobs or caring for their disabled child.

I see it as it shouldn't be there if you already have 3 kids and THEN you go into poverty.

But if you're already on benefits and struggling to make ends meet, 2 kids is enough for you to have. Yes I believe kids are a blessing and a gift for god, but if you can't pay for 2 of them, how is having a 3rd going to help.