Cap child tax credit after four children, says MP

[SardineQueen]

here

One of nadine's friends!

I'm not surprised to see this from a conservative MP, as ever I think this sort of thing is a terrible idea - children don't choose to be born and by restricting benefits in this way you are punishing the children for something you disapprove of the parents doing. And as I understand it the number of people with no work ever and loads of children is actually very low? So this sort of policy doesn't actually save much money at all. Can't remember where I saw that though.

I am sure there will be some who disagree. I thought that people who post here might be interested anyway.

I specifically said that you did not say that moondog, others have above.

However if you are that concerned about the limited state pot why take out what you don't need to?

Moondog what are you going to do about the children who continue to be born into a situation where there is no money to feed them? Are you going to allow them to starve.

I agree with you that there is a problem which is why I no longer stretch the stAte purse further by claiming a child benefit I don't need and the county can't afford

It's actually quite hard to stop them giving you CB. I tried about 5 years ago as I wasn't keeping track of it, had no idea what long forgotten account it was going to and clearly didn't need it.

The CB people made it sound so bloody complicated that I still get it but pay the equivalent amount each month on a DD to CentrePoint. Anyone who doesn't need it could just divert an equivalent amount to their favourite charity.

how would the cap work for a step family?

if a woman has 2 children and then remarries a man who has 3 children this puts them at 5 children. so do they lose CTC for one child? which child? which parent loses the payment? who decides?

also, as far as i know, IS and JSA doesn't increase for each child you have. IS is the money paid to you to keep yourself not your children. CTC is what pays for your children. the only one i could see that would be affected would be housing benefit so if someone started claiming and only had 2 children then their rate would stay the same for a 2 bed property even if they went on to have a 3rd child.

We used to donate to a charity to check that we could cope without the money . We then just stopped it, I can't remember it being that difficult .

Ok so what happens if your already a family of seven, then next year both parents lose there job and have to live on benefits until they find another suitable well paid job, which in this day and age could take years, to support said family of seven. Then the lovely government, who have already made you redundant, by selling off the companies the parents work for to overseas buyers, tell you that actually one of your children is not going to be entitled to the tax credit, oh and now your homeless because you cant pay your mortgage. Nice! People on benefits have already budgeted to the last penny, also not all of them are on drugs.

Yes, good for you Colditz.
It is nauseating to hear all of these posters pontificating about what people do and don't need.It reminds me of Fiona Campblee and her sickening war against charter schools (abetted every step of the way by unions). They beleive that only posh rich folk will send their kids there because of course their patronising assumption is that poor folk haven't any aspiratinos for their offspring and exist largely to siphon off state funds and shite services.

And as for you Fanny and your flannel about myself and NG 'walking a mile in the shoes of some intelligent, hard working people in Britain who earn less than £20,000 a year but have to have help to feed the kids they "shouldn't" have dared have, then they might get the fuck off their elitist soapboxes and have some empathy ' I'll have you know that my dh works in one of the poorest parts of the world where people openly laugh at the stupidity of the British in not appreciating what they have.

'driven into poverty'

Ah yes.
Evil bankers oink and herd them into cesspits.

What I loathe above all is the cheap hysterical lnguage of the right on brigade

'driven into poverty'
'penalising the poor'
'attacking the vulnerable'

What a pile of steaming sentimental crap

Oh an moondog says it perfectly too!

When you have two parents working full time and limiting their family to two children because they can't afford any more, what universe do people inhabit where it's okay to have 5/6/7 kids whilst relying completely or predominantly on the working couple mentioned before?

And you know, money has been thrown at " the poor" for years under Labour. It's made not one iota of difference because poverty isn't financial, it's moral and aspirational.

I have long believed that all children on benefits should receive free hot breakfast and lunch at school.

My gut reaction is that this is a sensible idea as 4 children is a very big family.

However in this day and age there are a lot of adults living with step children so 4 would be quite easy to reach. (Eg. If you have 2 kids from previous relationships each, that's 4 kids before you even have one with your new partner). I can't help feel that the policy would cause most grief to single parents, widows/widowers, children and people who had a child with a person who is physically or mentally ill, people with more than 4 kids who want to leave an abusive relationship...I genuinely think that the mum who has the big family in order to get more in benefits is much rarer than the groups that I just mentioned.

I think that there are more obvious benefit changes that can be made like the ability to split child benefit/tax credits between parents if they share custody, pursuing absent parents and tax cheats more vigorously, publishing more open information about tax credits in general. I mean the last thing is common sense isn't it? As far as I know there is no list that shows amount of household income-number of children-amount of tax credits so that people can check that they are getting the correct amount.

moondog your DH working with poverty doesn't give you an idea how it is to have to deal with it personally. I'm not disagreeing with posters who think capping is a good idea - morally I think it is wrong because it's the children who suffer.

colditz I wasn't referring to you when I said the lower classes, it was the posters on the thread who quite obviously have the view that all parents on benefits who just so happen to have 4+ children are sponging bastards.

Yes the bankers did fuck it up for a lot of people moondog - DH had a car sales business, when the rug was pulled on lending, we collapsed. NOBODY could get credit in 2009. Hence nobody bought a car. I went from having a comfortable life to a hard one which i explained earlier, was helped by parents and tax credits. But hey, you know it all don't you.

Oh and I bore three children when we were wealthy. Shit, what on earth should I do with them now I can't afford them anymore...? Hmm imagine if you had 5 kids and your DH had a massive heart attack age 42 and died and he had no pension and you couldn't work because the high cost of childcare meant it wasn't feasible. What would you do? All situations that have happened in my family.

Moondog your DH working with poverty doesn't give you an idea how it is to have to deal with it personally.

It doesn't have to because I'm not arguing my case.
When onee is married to someone has the future of nearly 100 000 people in dire poverty in his hands, funnily enough some basic issues of economics and wealth distribution filter through.

If you choose to have 5 kids yet have made no provision for looking after them should you die, you are extremely foolish.

I think every one of us has to take responsibility for our own lives. Even after our deaths.
That is much easier for some than others, however.

fanny, tbh, anyone who chooses to have five children without putting adequate life insurance in place is irresponsible.

But we only have one child and he's 17 now.

Well said, colditz!

@ HarryHillatemygoldfish - your "poverty isn't financial, it's moral and aspirational" would almost make me laugh if I didn't have this horrible feeling you're deadly serious.

Of course poverty is fucking financial. That's the definition of poverty. That's not to say that lack of 'aspiration' might not help (I admit to not having the faintest idea what you mean by 'moral' poverty, unless you mean yourself, in terms of your lack of compassion?). But true poverty is - by definition - not having enough cash. And is the problem under discussion. You try living on 'aspration' and high 'morals' alone - don't think you'll last long.

Patronising guff.

moondog - sincerely hope your dh is one hell of a lot more compassionate than you are, or I feel those poor 100,000 people you claim he lords over.

Or is this as fictional as your high salary and the child benefit you could so easily live without?

feel FOR

Wind yer neck in breadandbutterfly

There is poverty but it is so much less than even when I was a child. Much poverty is poverty of education, aspiration. People often make inappropriate choices and prioritise the wrong things. They don't know how to budget well .

The CIN thread is worth a read and you'll see that I'm a sympathiser but also a realist.

You'd think they were saying, 'Well, no more safety net, if anything happens, you'll be left to fend for yourselves.'

They're saying no more money after 4 children. So cut your cloth!

True, eminencegrise but where would be the fun in getting all Evil Tory hysterical about that perfectly reasonable stance?

In the US there was a policy of no more state help after, I think, two children and, guess what? Birth rate plummeted. It does work.

Someone I know teaches in a school in a neighbouring town. In her class this year ONLY ONE child has two parents living together. She said the trend is for mothers not to name a father on the birth certificate. The state is the provider. They are making a perfectly rational economic decision.