IDS suggestion if capping child related benefits at two children.

[JakeBullet]

Way do other people think about this?

I am assuming it means that new claimants after a set date IF it ever comes to fruition.

I am broadly in favour of this...not because I don't agree with child related benefits, I am receipt of them myself but because we appear to have a dwindling pot.

On the other hand IDS makes the mistake of thinking that everyone who claims for more than two children has always been a welfare recipient which is not the case....many families have gone under with the current recession and have children they thought they had planned for financially.

Or is this more propaganda?

I know we have had a lot of these threads too so sorry for starting another one but was interested to see there was not a thread about it.

I think you're right Darkest. I mean it's bollocks. I've been on here nearly 6 years and I somehow missed that she was so....thick?

I have never said all poor people are fat. I don't mind debating things but people should not misrepresent my views.

However it is certainly the case that the poorer you are in the UK the more likely you are fat.

That of course does not mean that some poorer people are the correct weight.

Very few are very thin because the basic state benefits are not enough to buy food on however.

Xenia that's why generalising is a crappy idea. What you said was a massive generalisation and it was offensive. I know you aren't so stupid that you think we're all overweight losers with no sense of purpose.

But that's how it came across. I hope that makes sense.

Newsflash: people do not open spreadsheets and discuss economics before having sex. In general, and I know this will horrify some people, I really don't believe individuals decide whether or not to have children on the basis of finances. Babies are conceived accidentally, or people just think "oh we'll cope".

I'd like to see any evidence that capping child benefit leads to a fall in the birth rate amongst those on the lowest incomes. I would bet money that this evidence does not exist.

All this will do is drive more families into poverty and widen social inequalities. this will lead to more crime and ill health etc, which will lead to greater burdens on the NHS, police etc etc.

There is no easy answer to tackling social issues like this. The best programmes work with families to help them develop aspiration and offer tailored support. It may not be populist or straightforward, but what matters is what actually works.

It is important though. If poor white boys are failing at school and Chinese girls do better than anyone it is helpful to know that and think about why. If housewives have higher depression rates than working women then that is important to know. Yes surveys are generalisations but it is very true that those in Glasgow eat a diet which ensures many get diabetes and that is much less common in parts of London.

On the thread capping to two children yes that might be wise. We could also cap child benefit to two children whatever your income too perhaps. I would like to see benefits removed for those in work including tax credits and housing benefits as they are market distortions and I suspect the left may agree with me too - if you know your workers can live on £13k each in a couple how are married and work full time because their housing is partly paid for by the state and they get childcare vouchers then you pay them that fee and there is no pressure to pay more. Market interference is not good.

So taking away benefits will lead to people being paid more by their employers?

Really - is that likely?

There's no evidence to say that removing/capping CB will stop poorer people having children. It's been tried in other places.

if people don't believe me take any benefits cliamant off mumsnet and tell me whether my daughters in their mid 20s pay more tax than her daughters of a similar age.

so how much tax are your 20 somethings dd paying?

Xenia is quite right that the market is distorted. We are all as taxpayers subsidising the profits both of large corporations like Tescos et al that fail to pay a living wage, and of private landlords whose rents are partly or wholly paid by housing benefit.

Where you think the solution lies depends on your appetite for societal breakdown. If you want large numbers of people starving/rioting in the streets by all means withdraw all in-work benefits as soon as possible and let the market correct itself. Alternatively, stop subsidising those at the top and start making companies to pay for their own workforces out of their own profits.

Over 90 per cent of new housing benefit claimants are in work.

On the statement "Market interference is not good", market interference is inevitable. Markets do not exist in a vacuum, but in a framework of legislation and state institutions. You may like or dislike particular forms of interference according to how convenient or irksome they seem to be to your particular business, but a blanket statement that market interference is bad is just a nonsense.

I am in complete agreement with you declutterbug and on the question of HB on private rents, it is the landlords that should be forced to bring rents down, not a ceiling put on HB. This goverment is waging war on the poor in the most horrendous way - worse even than Thatcher and I never thought I would say such a thing.

What about the under 25s who from April 2013 will not be able to claim HB at all. They have to go back "to their chidhood bedrooms" says Cameron. The stupid man is so out of touch with ordinary people that he either doesn't realise that thousands of young people are kicked out of home or leave of their own accord because they are being abused and have no "childhood bedroom" to bring backinto use, or else he knows and just doesn't care. I suspect it could be the latter.

Centrepoint see hundreds of thousands of young people who have no homes to return to, and this viscous cut in HB for some of the most vulnerable people in our society is going to see them on the streets and most definitely homeless and hungry - how can you be eligible for the mighty sum of £60 a week JSA if you are unable to demonstrate that you are looking for work, after sleeping rough and with an empty belly.

I could go on and on - the WCTests are a sham, and a hidden camera taken in by a GP who was a Labour councillor, had the trainer from ATOS telling them that the test was evil but they had to stick to the questions and had to score 15 (not to retain the Incapacity Benefit) but to be put on ESA - two groups, one Work related activity group, and the other for people who can't work but I think you have to be dead to get into that group. 40% of appeals are overturned but the govt have a little trickup their sleeve, after a few weeks they are called back in for a WCT and guess what - yep you're right they are declared fit for work!!

1000 people have died in the year in which they were found fit to work. Oh and guess who is now charged with the task of getting people off DLA - ah none other than ATOS - with billions of pound contracts.

What came out of the secret filming was that the people carrying out the tests (not all GPs, but nurses, physiotherapists, and some non medics) were subject to interviews if they had not put enough people on to JSA - we weren't given the figure of "enough" but you do understand there are no targets - yeah right!

Sorry I am straying from the thread but I just think these Tory toffs are the scrapings of humanity, and are taking us back to the 1890s and the Poor Law.

Well said NanaNina...I don't think I can add to that.

I kind of agree with Xenia. There are a lot of families who are living completely on benefits who are third generation. There is no point in encouraging this when their kids are just going to follow suite. I was listening to a teacher today who works in London who simply said that it didn't matter how much she tried with her pupils, most would end up in gangs or unemployable, simply because the start to their day was so atrocious that they didn't have anything left for school but went for the dinners. I expect these are the kids who will fail.

We have to stop this and we have to stop making life without responsibility attractive.

Nana nina, what is wrong with sharing until you get yourself on your feet. I remember flat/house sharing when young. My husband who is 60 remembers his 5 siblings sharing a house with another family. They had the upstairs and there was loads of them in a room, is that so bad, do we really need a room per child nowadays?

Not 4 turning youve said that the start to their day is atrocious
Then youve said that that "life without responsibility is attractive"
Contradict yourself much!

Wah WAh i had to do it so why shouldnt others have to. Wah Wah.

So what do you suggest, that we keep on saying, hey have all the kids you want, we'll pay you! Or just stop encouraging breeding and yes I will use the word breeding because some of it damn well is just that? Then hopefully we can deal with the fallout of this 'breeding' in some way.

I don't have all of the answers but I do care.

And as for the 'Wah Wahing', why is it so bad for you to have to live a bit frugally at the beginning?

Xenia. Why do you persist with the claptrap you spout that 'children of benefit claimants will never work'?

My DD has SN's. Doesn't mean that I am not fighting the system hard to ensure that she can work. She has her plan, starting with getting 'A's in her catering GCSE, (which she is getting), then going to college to study Catering NVQ, then doing a 2-year patisserie course, then working in a cupcake shop, then saving up and trying to start her own business.

To achieve this, she has to work twice as hard to overcome the obstacles caused by her disabilities. Doesn't mean she won't be expected to work.

My DS1 has possibly got into one of the Country's top achieving Grammar schools. His ambition is to become a Neurosurgeon.

My DS2 wants to work with animals in some capacity.

They all want to work, and throughout their lives, at least one or the other of their parents have been in work at all times. Right now, it's their fathers. A few years ago, when my disabilities weren't so bad, it was me.

Just because I happen to claim benefits now, it doesn't mean that my DC's don't get brought up to have a decent work ethic.

My disabled DD has had a phone call this evening to tell her that she has finally got a paper round. She wants to use her £10 a week earnings from this to invest in cake making and decorating equipment.

She has already made £30 by making and decorating a cake for her form tutor's baby's 1st birthday.

But of course, because I am on benefits, my DC's will amount to nothing.

Xenia, you talk such tripe. I know lots of people trying to bring their DC's up whilst on benefits. The majority of their DC's will be working in either early morning jobs or weekend jobs long before they are 16.

They don't get things handed to them on a plate - if they want to have something, they are taught that they need to earn the money to buy it.

Not4turning yuk to your nickname btw! You misunderstood my post I think. Yes of course large families yesteryear were brought up in small houses and the kids slept 3 or 4 in a bed etc. There is nothing wrong with sharing until you get on your feet (except that it is well nigh impossible for young people to "get on their feet") as the govt is pulling the rug from under them.

There is nothing wrong with flat/house sharing which is what most students do and groups of employed young people, as a way of sharing expenses. What I was talking about are the young people under 25 who are not going to be allowed to claim any Housing Benefit from April 2013. There will be many young people who won't be affected because they will indeed go back to their "childhood bedrooms" (that's if they've ever left them) because they are fortunate enough to have a caring family.

However the many hundreds of thousands of young people under 25 will not be able to return to the family for reasons I've already stated and they won't be able to share a flat or a house as they won't be able to contribute to the rent - get it - no HB - no money for rent. No JSA because they don't have an address and I would be interested if you could tell me yourproposal for these young people to fulfil the requirements of claiming JSA (i.e. to go to Job Centre every 2 weeks, with details of your job searching - proof that you have made 2 phone calls, proof that you have written 2 letters applying for jobs and proof that you have made 2 speculative enquiries about jobs) when you are homeless and hungry oh and won't of course have money for fares, for food and making phone calls, and a computer might be a bit hard to find whilst living on the streets.

OK the Job Centre staff have been given an impossible job so they can't always carry out those checks, but they can if they so wish and if they seriously doubt someone is not trying to get a job their JSA can be stopped - so no money at all.

The worst of all this is that there are precious few jobs available. My local Tesco store had 92 applications for 9 jobs. Have you heard we're in a double dip recession regardless of the crap that the tories are peddling about coming out of recession. Are you not concerned about billions of pounds of taxpayers' money being paid to private companies (lets take A4E) - to get people into work. They have failed abysmally and the "top banana" forget her name lives in a mansion with 20 of her relatives and has recently found to be committing fraud. She was getting the uneployed people to work for her and was using one set of jobseekers to assist the next cohort to find a job. Talk about the blind leading the blind. Do you know how many millions ATOS are paid and G4S (despite the cock-up at the Olympics) No I didn't think you would. The money paid in benefits is a drop in the ocean compared to these billions of pounds paid to private companies. Do you know that the appeals process for the WCT where 40% of appeals are successful, is costing the country 50 million pounds a year, that's just for the appeals and there is a log jam, and after that they are called back in for a WCT and told they are fit for work. Do you know the cost of selling off parts of the NHS to private contractors.

I think you are living in some kind of cloud cuckoo land and yes the contradiction you have been accused of is clear, and if you care - with your mind set then god help the rest of us! Do you read the DM by any chance?

I await your replies with interest to the queries I have raised.

Excellent post Nana.

Thanks DE but I suspect it will fall on stoney ground!

My 'poor white boy' isn't failing at school. He just got a decent mark on his 11+ despite being seriously ill (was his last chance to sit it, and he was already ill before the first sitting).

My 'poor, disabled white boy' isn't failing at school. He has significant disabilities, but he is working his bloody socks off to try to catch up with his peers. He may be below average, but the gap is ever closing. And not through anything the bloody school is doing. He may never pay as much tax as your DD, but he will be working. And that in itself is nothing short of amazing considering that when he was 3yo, we were told he would never walk or talk.

My DD with disabilities and LD's is striving so hard to achieve her life goals. She probably won't ever be a high rate tax payer. But she will WORK. And this is the DD that I was told to leave in a residential home and get on with my life (by a SW) when she was just 7mo.

So screw the detractors, the haters, the people who think my DC's will never amount to anything. Because if just isn't true. So they may not be mega rich, and may not pay mega amounts of taxes, but they will be working, earning and contributing to society despite the fact that I am just a 'breeder'.

Cos all I want 4 my kidz is 2 hav theyre dole money, innit?

Because a benefit claimant is never going to want more than that for their DC's?!

The people I know on benefits are either just escaped from DV relationships in the last year (and still in temp accommodation in one case), doing an OU degree so that when her toddler is school age, she can get a decent paid job, caring for a disabled DC, or working either PT or FT.

Not many things there say they are just 'breeders' and their DC's will be the same?

And think for a minute just WHO is going to do the low paid jobs that enable the higher paid to go about their daily lives, and do their jobs effectively.

The Neurosurgeon isn't going to be able to operate in a dirty operating theatre, are they?

The City worker isn't going to be able to return to her job after maternity leave if there are no Nurseries or childminders, is she?

The BTL LL isn't going to keep his second home if nobody can afford to pay to rent it, are they?

Your Granny isn't going to be looked after in the care home if nobody is doing the care worker's job, is she?

Low paid jobs are just as essential to Society as higher paid jobs. Maybe they aren't valued financially, but they would sure be missed if nobody did them!

The only way this is going to work is if we go back to the days of tied servitude. Where you couldn't have a relationship without your employers agreement, where foundling hospitals were ten a penny, where there were workhouses for those that couldn't support their family.

Is that the world you really want, Xenia?

There are a lot of families who are living completely on benefits who are third generation.

If there are so many, how come nobody has ever been able to find them? And yes they have been looked for.

I don't particularly care if you don't like my nickname. So we'll have to disagree on that.

Tell me then, why is there a regular supply of cleaners, rubbish technicians etc who are all from abroad both in my area and in London? Because we have bought up a load of kids that will not take the bloody jobs!

You ask your teen if they will, they will take of their headphones and go 'fuck off I aint doing that'.

So no, I am afraid I have no sympathy. It's about time we got tough with our kids and let them have it.