The 2 child benefit cap lift will be cancelled out by the weekly benefit cap

[Pinkbowls]

I keep seeing all this talk about families with 6+ kids “racking it in” if the two-child benefit cap is lifted, and honestly, it’s hogwash. Here’s the reality:

If the Labour government does lift the two-child cap, it will mainly help low-income working families and families who are claiming disability benefits. These households aren’t subject to the cap, so the poorest families and those who genuinely need extra support for a third or fourth child are the ones who will benefit.

For a single adult with two children outside London, the monthly benefit cap is around £1,832 (~£423 per week). In London, it’s higher, about £2,108 per month (~£486 per week).

Now let’s break it down roughly for someone renting privately:

• Assume the standard allowance + personal allowance for the adult + child elements (for 2 kids) = around £1,200–£1,300/month.
• Private rent in many parts of the UK, and especially in London, can easily eat £800–£1,200/month.
• Add council tax support (which helps a bit, but only partially) and you can see that most of the cap is already taken up.

So in reality, lifting the two-child cap doesn’t suddenly create a pile of extra cash. For families on benefits but below the cap, the extra child element for a third or fourth child may only leave a modest amount after rent and council tax.

The idea that parents with 6+ children will suddenly be sitting on a fortune is completely overblown. The system is designed so that the support goes to those who genuinely need it, not to families already comfortably above the threshold.

The main winners of this policy will be:

• Low-income working families who are earning enough to be under the cap and can actually receive the child element for additional children.
• Families claiming disability benefits, who aren’t subject to the cap at all.

It’s important to separate myths from reality: this is about helping the most vulnerable and supporting working families, not about rewarding large families for being on benefits.

please give us examples other that Duke of grosvenor and his inheritance

get a job then go lift it!! Stop spilling over with excuses. It should not be lifted anyway

Surely studying is a brilliant example of a good use of any spare time and makes them more employable if they are able to go back to work at some point ? It should be encouraged not criticised!!

I’m a single parent of 3 children. I work part time. As my wages are about the lower limit the benefit cap doesn’t apply to me. Therefore if they lift the 2 child benefit cap I will be nearly £300 per month better off and out of poverty to some degree.

if you work above the minimum then you are exempt from the benefit cap which applies to loads of low income families.

I am not remotely being ridiculous.

Quote:
4 million of the 8 million on benefits dont need to look for work and 85% of those are off work due to mental health or behavioural issues. Not physical disability. And the cost is set to rise to £100bn/ year which is twice the defence budget.

how come we suddenly have so many people who are so disabled with mental health that they can’t have a job?

Yes. She said she has applied for PIP (did not say she is receiving it)and is job seeking and struggling to find work.
I bet if you knew her name you would be reporting her to the DWP. Anxiety is a very broad term, and you have no idea how it affects her.
People with MH issues are allowed to leave the house and appear on TV.

Ask the assessors.

You yourself have said i shouldn't get PIP on this very thread because I work.

Trying to make out anyone who says disability benefit spending is too high is a ‘fan of workhouses’ and ‘is jealous of disabled people’ is utter nonsense, and these slurs are no longer working in suppressing debate because people have woken up to it.

I’m disabled and VERY worried about benefit and NHS spending. Reform will be our next government and with these ridiculous figures of 5 million on PIP and DLA, and 8 million claiming UC, the first thing they will do is take an almighty knife and slash the lot. If we can get the numbers down to a more acceptable level, this overcorrection need not happen.

It’s £311 a week In London from what Google says.

It really isn't you just borrow against your assets.to extract cash to buy more. And gain more wealth and still pay no tax. We see this done in front of our eyes by millionaires and billionaires all the time. The fact that you think someone with a large amount of wealth is claiming a petty little directors salary to pay dividends on is very naive, likewise thinking they sell theirs assets and pay CGT. I mean even by suggestion these things you're still painting a picture of someone who has gained wealth through a business and work. These people are living off their WEALTH, they don't need to have a little side hustle with corporation tax and even if they didn't it doesn't touch the sides of them accusing millions or billions in untaxed wealth. You are so naive.

I don’t care how it affects her. She was able to go on a live time television show, whatever ‘anxiety’ she has should not be funded by the taxpayer. She can jog on and carry on job searching.

Have you read some of the comments on this thread? Aimed at people with physical disabilities?

Exactly.
Some people love to keep on learning but are also disabled.
I know a mum who is unable to work due to her autism, and she has an autistic child. She has been doing those funded level 2 courses to help gain more understanding. I believe there are courses in autism you can do, as well as things like challenging behaviours.

I would rather I didn't have a child with severe disabilities. I work BTW, and a lot of parents that can't would love to work and have a break from caring/miss their careers. I think you are over generalising about SEN parents like most people have on here as it is easier than engaging your brain.

A large proportion of other claimants work, it's just they are not being paid enough because wages have stagnated in real terms when costs have gone up and the issue of high housing costs has not been fixed. Maybe you should ask why we the taxpayers are subsidising employers that pay shit wages who make record profits, or paying landlords to house the nation when we could be getting this rent paid back to the state via social housing? You could ask why the stress of raising a SEN child and a lack of specialist education places, wrap around care and NHS support means parents have to give up work when they shouldn't. The economic model globally is a mess, this is why nothing works.

You will likely be disabled yourself one day. At least you've had a good run at life without disability.

Then she can use her PIP to pay for it herself.

What is she meant to live on whilst looking for work?

Who supports me? My partner and I have always worked and have no children. I got sod all support when I was made redundant last year! What support? Some of these women sat on benefits have 8 kids! How on earth do i compare to that?

She does not have to. The courses are government funded. Anyone can do them.
Maybe have a look and see if they have one in Empathy.

We are no longer a rich country who can afford to throw money at ‘soft value’. Anything that sinks money into people where the ‘returns’ are nebulous and not tangible needs to be reviewed. Anything that is not a basic need (food, accommodation, energy bills, water) should not be funded by the taxpayer.

Conditions like adhd, learning disabilities and autism are different to conditions diagnosed antenatally as usually symptoms develop gradually and then you wait years for an assessment, rather than suddenly be told that the unborn baby you thought was healthy has a disability. But still you quite often get posts on the special needs section from mums of babies who are worried their child has autism because they aren't waving at 10 months or worried about development delay because their baby isn't walking at 15 months. Nobody gets replies saying don't worry, you can claim dla and be exempt from the benefit cap. I know that children with conditions such as autism and adhd make up the majority of children getting DLA. I would imagine that this is partly because you can't diagnose children with these conditions in time to have a TFMR. I don't know the exact statistics but the majority of women who have an antenatal diagnosis of downs syndrome will have a TFMR.

I didn't know that children who come from a big family have more chance of being diagnosed with neurodivergant conditions due to resources being spread more thinly, that's really interesting. I am aware of a few families who have lots of children who all have autism. Mostly the parents have it too though so i would imagine in their case the reason is genetic.

I don’t think the government should fund anything where there will be no financial return.

It's so rife we don't even track it accurately. Because why would we if we are asking nothing of them? But you're very naive to think it doesn't happen.

"HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) cannot identify how much tax is paid by UK billionaires. In a report on collecting the right tax from wealthy individuals, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) calls on HMRC to publish its plan for increasing tax yield from wealthy taxpayers both domestically and offshore.

Despite UK billionaires making up a relatively small number of people and the significant sums of money involved, the PAC was disappointed to find that HMRC cannot use the wide range of data it uses to identify wealthy people to provide transparency about the tax paid by the wealthiest. A billionaire has wealth and assets 500x greater than a wealthy person who just meets HMRC’s definition of ‘wealthy’, and so has huge potential on their own to affect how much revenue is available for public spending*. The PAC is seeking HMRC’s plan for improving its understanding of the wealth and assets held by billionaires, including how it might immediately start work on comparing available data on known billionaires, such as the Sunday Times Rich List, with its own records.

HMRC's has done well to ensure wealthy taxpayers comply with tax rules brought in an additional £5.2 billion of tax revenue in 2023-24. This is a significant increase from £2.2 billion in 2019-20. However, the report notes that the scale of this success suggests either wealthy non-compliance has got worse, or that previous estimates of their tax avoidance were too low, and finds that HMRC needs to improve its assessment of the amount of tax that the wealthy avoid paying. "

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/127/public-accounts-committee/news/208347/taxing-the-wealthy-hmrc-does-not-know-how-many-billionaires-pay-tax-in-the-uk/

She can ask herself that.

It isn’t our problem.

This is irrelevant. Please give examples of rich people paying zero tax as you said you have many