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.

Priority should read probability.

I can see what you are saying, NannaNina, but from what I have seen, both through being in the M&B unit, and volunteering there for the following 13 years, it changes the parenting of at least 90% of the teenagers there. I know of 20 that now attend private schools, 17 that have had children at Grammar schools.

The ones who are in Grammar school, I know children from Y11 down, and all are coping perfectly well. Expected to gain GCSE's A*-B's.

I have seen with my own eyes that 90% of these girls CAN be helped, it's only a minority that you can help with all the support in the world.

I can see where you are coming from as well Xenia. the middle classes who are reasonably educated aren't having many children as they don't get any help or tax breaks.

I know we need people to do menial jobs and have done them myself. The problem is with the people who won't work and think it is beneath them are sometimes the ones cushioned by the benefit system.

I don't think Xenia is saying the 'poor' shouldn't have children but not have say 5 they cannot afford.

Not fruit, it is sugar, fructose, causes blood sugar to spike up and down even though in moderaion is good for you. Go for good fats, fish etc.

This is the problem Government advice is 30 years out of date for diabetics and many others (have a look at Food Hospital on iplayer which had a recent episode about a boy with epilepsy). US and UK say lots of carbs. Recent science does not agree. Sugar Nation is a good book to read for diabetics.

Anyway must rush off to a work thing.

Fruit is fin in moderation though Xenia. My son amazingly eats a very balanced diet considering he is autistic. What child would willingly eat sprouts and cauliflower? My son is an oddity I think .....

Our local Morrisons has a fab cabbage and leaves counter with constant cooling steam to keep it all fresh.....we have tried loads of new stuff courtesy of that, my son loves picking out different colours, am praying others are doing the same or it will go.

Fruit is very high is natural sugars....

Sugar itself does not worsen symptoms of ADHD though, various bits if research have looked at this. It's about balancing the diet out, o vinous lay a child eating lots of sugary foods will eat less foods containing more beneficial nutrients.

Poorer families can have as many children as they choose. But the taxpayer shouldn't have to pay benefits post the second child. If enough notice of this change is given, it is perfectly fair.

Contraception is widely available in Britain. Often free. The overwhelming majority of unwanted pregnancies can be avoided.

I have to accept what you say Couthy but I would cast doubt on your figure of 90% helped to the extent that their parenting is changed and I wonder how this is measured. Are you saying that 20 of the girls at the m & b unit have sent their children to private schools and 17 of the children of these young mums got into grammar school. If so I find that extraordinary. There are very few grammars in the country and my son and dil live in that area. Only 10% of children pass the 11+ with high enough marks to get to this school. My dil was telephoned by the head of this grammar and told her that 3 of her year 6 girls had passed the exam, but she must choose just one as there were no more places! OR are you saying that the young mothers themselves are at private schools or grammar schools?

Research on this kind of thing needs to be methodical, objective and measured over many years. That's why sociological research takes so long to be published. I don't know what method you are using but it doesn't sound very scientific to me to be honest.

Sorry - don't mean to be offensive, but the posts about the cycle of deprivation that I post can all be backed up by academic research. I know I said I had "seen with my own eyes" but that comes from years of sitting on smelly sofas, with kids in nappies running round with a bottle in their mouth, piles of clothes everywhere and mum smoking and shouting at the kids from time to time. Young mothers are usually admitted to m & b units in the baby's first year of life, so presumably these young mothers are now around 13 or 14 themselves, so you must be talking about the young mothers themselves, rather than the next generation.

IF this m & b unit has such successful outcomes then surely whatever skills they have to "turn around" these young mums in the way that you describe, should be learned for staff in m& b units across the country and this would solve the problem of the cycle of deprivation that no-one to date has any idea how to solve this social problem

Xenia, if funding is reserved for upper middle class children then of course they will do better than other children; not because they are more intelligent or talented, far from it, but because they are given the opportunity to thrive. What you would do is perpetuate the myth/lie that children of poor families are less able for your own advantage. You should seriously think about the incredible skills, talents and abilities that are lost because these poorer children are treated as though they are nothing when, both historically and now, many have proven that they are the best the human race has to offer.

This is off on a tangent from the flow the thread is taking, but I thought I'd just throw in the fact that here in Germany you get more child benefit for the 3rd and 4th child than you do for the first, and more if you have several under 3 and under 6... I have always assumed this is in part because the birth rate is falling (currently the average is something like 1.1 children per woman) and the population does need to replace itself to support the ageing population in the long term...

I wonder if deterring people from having more than 2 children is wholly wise in that context, given of course many people will have no children... child benefit isn't enough to be the deciding factor for anyone thinking that having children is a financially viable alternative to working surely?

theenglish - we don't have a problem of a falling birthrate here any longer though do we as immigrants over the last few years are fuelling a much higher one because they are generally younger and of child rearing age. our problem is overcrowding.

if you were to give child benefit in a purely logical way you would give more for each child to married, graduate parents and less to co-habiting less educated parents.

NannaNina - I lived in this M&B unit for 9 months. I have volunteered there for the following 13 years.

The Y11's and below that I am talking about are the CHILDREN of the young mums that were in the M&B unit either at the sane time as I was, or since.

We were encouraged to stay in education, to make a better life for our DC's, to go to college, to do OU, to go to Universities.

And it is showing in the outcomes for OUR DC's.

This M&B unit SHOULD be held up as an example to others, it makes such a difference to people's lives, IMO.

Most of the teen mums that were in there are now working, some as Lawyers, a couple of accountants, two Doctors, and anything in between these jobs and NMW jobs.

Most of us value education, because we were taught to value it for ourselves.

It may not be scientific, but I have seen first hand the good that a well run M&B unit can do.

This thread is making many twists and turns so I think I will bow out, but before doing so can I just return to the original OP and say that I think IDS needs a brain transplant and quick.........!

Just going to put this here too.
There is a programme about food banks on BBC 1 at 10.35.

Yes I've just watched it and it is indeed shocking that in the UK people are having to be handed food parcels, as we have seen so often in the third world countries. I did wonder though why they made such a big part of the programme about Darren who turned out to be a con man. I think this was totally unnecessary and would pander to the view of sceptics that people don't really do need food parcels.

Woops just remembered I was bowing out. What did you think of it DE - it made me want to help in some way but I am not a Christian and I think the one in my hometown is run by some evangelical religion which would stop me getting involved. We even had our Tory MP in the local paper smilingly being photographed with a church group who were doing food parcels - I thought this was beyond belief as it's the Tories that have caused this dreadful crisis with the war they are waging on the poor - that seemed to have escaped her thinking.......

Hi N. i started a thread on this board about the programme and ive put a couple of interesting links in there. The Darren thing pissed me off too. It also really doesnt make sense that he took the risk of being filmed while he was on the con. im sure my local food bank is run by a religion too.

I think it's great that some religious groups ARE running food banks. Too many so called Christians pitch up for church on a Sunday and forget it all in the week! Jesus WOULD have fed the poor and so should those who profess to follow his teachings.

It doesn't have to be a religious thing though....there are non religious organisations running food banks,

FWIW I help occasionally with a food centre for the homeless which is run y a religious charity...there is no religious talk to those using the centre unless they specifically ask for it on a one to one basis...it's about feeding people.

Hi DE where have you started your thread and what's the title please? I too couldn't understand why Darren was willing to be filmed (even with his bloody parma ham!) The only thing I can think is that con men are usually very confident people who come across as very pleasant interesting people. Maybe he was happy to have the attention of being filmed as part of his con, and didn't seem to mind being challenged either. It's still strange though because by the end he knew he's been rumbled and must have agreed for this programme to go out.

Whatever it was still a stupid thing to do.............and will make the DM readers think that all people struggling on the margins of society are like him, just as so many disabled people are now being called "scroungers" etc. Dog bites dog I'm afraid.

Hi Nana.
Here is the thread x

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/1600524-Britains-Hiidden-Hungry-on-BBC1