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.

well said claig!

There is another thread around somewhere about non resident parents (usually fathers) not paying for their offspring from one relationship then going off and producing more children with the next partner.

I would cap them instead. No child benefit for any children of a non paying non resident parent.

claig - start to tax me....we've been taxed to the hilt as a family and got very little back over the years. i doubt we will get much when we retire either.

so you don't agree with the stats that say children of single parents are likely to do worse at school and are more likely to turn to drugs and alcohol and be out of work? You don't think that one single parent family living on benefits breads another generation doing the same? You think that they will help the ageing population instead...could i ask how?

i'm sure that having loads of children is 'great for them' as its people like me who end up paying for them

craig - by 'thy' I'm assuming you are referring to the labour gov as they were the party that encouraged mass immigration and the influx of a young labour force.

perhaps this country should be more like the french government which i understand has a payment system which encourages graduates to have more children

'we've been taxed to the hilt as a family'

we all have and they intend to tax us more to "save teh planet" and cut our "carbon footprint". Don't blame it on families with more than 5 children. They get only a minute fraction of our taxes, lots of our taxes are wasted on grand projects, subsidies to rich landowners who erect windfarms, and who knows what else?

I don't think that doing well at school is the mark of a worthy human being. I know people who haven't passed a single exam but are far more worthy than some who went to Oxbridge. David Davis MP was in a single parent household. No, I don't think that children in single parent households are likely to do worse at school. I think they are just as clever as Cameron's kids, but are possibly going to worse schools. I believe teh education system should be improved.

'You don't think that one single parent family living on benefits breads another generation doing the same?'

Not at all. David Davis MP is an example to the contrary.

I believe there aren't enough jobs available, enough factories, enough manufacturing, enough industry, enough investment. Once that is sorted out and opportunities are available, then many of our problems will disappear.

'You think that they will help the ageing population instead...could i ask how?'
No they won't help the elderly, because that is not part of their plan. But that doesn't mean it has to remain that way.

'i'm sure that having loads of children is 'great for them' as its people like me who end up paying for them

You are paying far more to support BBC salaries, home flipping, subsidies to rich landowners with windfarms, carbon footprint taxes, EU subsidies, the Olympics etc. than you are to the relatively few families with 5 children. I think those families are far more worthy than all of the rest combined.

I'd rather pay for a few scroungers than let genuine families go without. I accept that as an unavoidable cost associated with living a civilised society that supports those in need of help. That doesn't mean that I approve of the piss takers at all, just that I can't see a way of avoiding them without penalising those in need of a safety net. Besides it's not the children's fault they have feckless parents. I can't see that reducing the income of these families can possibly fail to have a negative impact on the children.

By 'they', I am referring to the elite, not their Labour party or green puppets.

Yes we should be more like France. We should look after our people more.

The elite want what they call a 'sustainable' population. That means a reduced population. Here is Eton educated Sir Jonathon Porritt on a 'sustainable' population.

"The second is to see if we might persuade (please note, persuade, not coerce!) the 26% of women in the UK who are currently expected to have more than two children to ?stop at two?. (The other 74% already do stop at two, or have one child or none.) If we did this, we would be able to cut our forecast population by around 7 million people."

www.jonathonporritt.com/blog/sustainable-population

There will be a number of ways that they move towards this. One will be education about scroungers and child benefit for large families. They will be trying to do lots of 'persuading'. But they will also use 'save teh planet' rhethoric and further taxation and penalties and low growth and austerity in order to try and drive the message home.

rhetoric

@ MindTheGapp - you said that;

"spiritual poverty is much more of an issue than financial poverty. If we crack the former, the latter ceases to exist".

Could you define spiritual poverty, please? It sounds like you've discovered how to make us all rich - great. Please tell us how to be spiritually rich, please so we can sort out this pesky recession business.

Have you thought of running for Prime Minister, so you can do a Gordon and "save the world"?

I'm sure that what people on the breadline are really looking for is someone like you who recognises the gnawing hunger spiritual hole in their lives, and can feed their bodies oh sod that souls.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/1578468/One-in-five-children-growing-up-on-benefits.html

On in five children in Britain grow up in households dependent on state benefits, But that is not the fault of the families. There is not enough well-paid work and opportunities available.

The Conservative MP, Chris Grayling, is right to blame government ministers

'Chris Grayling, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said: "This is a shocking indictment of the Government's failure to tackle child poverty. The fact that nearly half of children in some areas come from homes entirely dependent on benefits should bring shame to ministers."

'Britain now has Europe's highest proportion of children in workless households.'
That is shocking. It's not because British people are feckless, lazy scroungers. The system has not created enough employment for them.

I think the following is a pretty disgusting statement by someone who to my mind is out of touch and "alright Jack"

"Robert Whelan, of the Right-wing think-tank Civitas, said the figures were a "disaster".
He added: "We need a stick to get people off benefits. The whole welfare policy has been based on carrots, which are not working. These people have now eaten so many carrots it's amazing they haven't turned into rabbits."

Where will people go if they move off benefits. There are millions unemployed. Don't believe the propaganda that they are all lazy, there really aren't enough jobs out there and there are far too many jobs that pay wages that are much too low. All these think tanks and the great and good have not created employment for the people. They bail out bankers with billions and call millions of struggling people "scroungers". It's shameful.

Why wildeyed, do you have more than four children?

No, I said in my post I only have two. I realise the OP was about tax credits for larger families but I am not the only one to wander away from the point as is usual on MN.

I was referring to all the calls for people to limit their families to what they can afford without help from tax payers. Are Child Tax Credits benefits or not? Are they only classed as state benefits if you have more than four children?

The OP also wasn't about Child Benefit or Free School Meals. Incidentally if you get Working Tax Credits your children are not entitled to free school meals or free milk. Due to the costs of working (transport etc) our disposable income is much less than if DH just claimed JSA and CTC but our son still doesn't get them.

Going back to the OP:

Surely the vast majority of the cost of CTC is made up of families like mine with less than four children whether working or not. So, in order to actually cut the cost to the tax payer it would be necessary to cut tax credits for smaller families too. When I was paying taxes (for 20+ years pre-DC) I was happy for my taxes to be spent on the future generation and I hope to be able to do so again in the future.

I would also be happy for Child Benefit to continue to be universal. It is a drop in the ocean of this country's debt problems. There is always the option of not claiming it.

Well I generally agree with most of what you say, Claig, but there is another issue here.
We know that many (not all-I don't have figures to hand) large families cost a huge amount to the state,not just in benefits but in the additional 'support' they need through the intervention/inteference of social workers, school welfare officers. HVs and other |HCPs and so on.
That in itself might not be a problem because it does after all create work for the ever agrowing armies of helping professions (The Centre for Policy Studies has written a very interesting paper on SEN as a growing industry and it is spot on.)

Many of the availiable jobs are taken by immigrants, because the indigenous population does not want to do them as they have, quite logically, figured out that the benefits they receive will bring in the same amount. Unfortunately this means they also miss out on the other advantages of work-operating to a schedule, valuing leisure time, getting out of the house,m meeting people outside their immeditate circle and seizing additional opportunities.

Tyhe immimgrant on the other hand, may be sending his money home where it is paying for a brother or sister to attend school, or parents to buy a plot of land, so for them, the prospect of very long days, poor pay and bad conditions pales into insignificance because they have a goal in mind.

I have sat in many homes in the developing world with people who have told me stories like this. I have looked through their photo albums, seen the homes the money earnt in an 'Indian' restaurant in Manchester bought and the children educated as a result of it.

Some we wein, some we lose.
The fact that most people can now walk into Primark and buy a top for a night out that they will never wear again is a gain. The fact that it is made in Bangladesh by someone on a pittance is somewhat of a gain for that RMG worker (she now has a job and money indsependently of a man) but a loss for the British manufacturing industry.

I'm no economist but I can see it is a complicated set-up.

Something must be done to curb over population through whether we take a carrot or stick approach. If we do nothing then I'm fairly certain that life will become extremely unpleasant for everybody. We're using up resources faster than they can be replaced and no amount of well intentioned recycling will rectify that. Worldwide our population has doubled since the sixties, until then it took us about 150,000 years to get to that level. On a micro level UK has a rapidly growing yet ageing population so we've got a double bubble of trouble ahead.

Somebody within government needs to start taking this seriously and the only language people respond to is money so I would suggest tax breaks and incentives to keep to 2 children per family and stopping benefits for anymore than 2 children in a family. We can apply this immediately to tax breaks but will need a good warning period for parents wholly reliable on state benefits. In other words we will carry on paying for existing children but any that are conceived or born after the cut off date will not be counted for financial assistance.

Moondog speaks sense here.

Okay, a couple of points.

" gnawing hunger"? In families in the UK? Hardly. Really, you know that's sensationalist ridiculousness. Many people on benefits are overweight for a start off.

Sadly, the stats show that if you are the child of a single parent on benefits you are far more likely to end up that way yourself. The idea that benefit claimants are churning out the great and the good, poised to save the UK is a fallacy. Some do, yes. Most, no. In most cases the cycle continues.

The bottom line is simply a lack of responsibility. You don;t keep having children you cannot afford. That is a good, a simple and a moral approach. The idea that you can churn out kid after kid and me and you and everyone else must pay is pretty obscene. Not sure how anyone can think it isn't.

Alouisee, exactly. It's not exactly difficult to implement a two child benefits policy for children not yet conceived is it?

Besides, that will also have a knock on effect in saving money on SS, free school meals, intervention etc etc.

Harry, who talked of 'gnawing hunger'??!
Can you point me to that post so I can have a good chortle at the hyperbole?

Twas breadandbutterfly, that known understater

I'm sure that what people on the breadline are really looking for is someone like you who recognises the gnawing hunger spiritual hole in their lives, and can feed their bodies oh sod that souls.

Hilarious!
Thanks.

I'm with harryhill

Gnawing hunger? What, because of being on benefits? I've already laid out the figures for someone on benefits and, as usual, nobody has taken any notice of them.

I'm on benefits now. I receive DLA for my son and extra tax credits but these are spent on his needs. Even before that, I managed to meet the family's needs on just base-rate tax credits and income support. None of us went hungry, not for a moment. We may not have had the most varied diet, but slight bordom with one's dinner is not comparable to gnawing hunger.

People are struggling all over the country. Some people are dependent on food banks. They just don't make it on the news programmes delivered by the presenters in shiny suits with their publicly funded hundreds of thousands pounds salaries.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2040024/Lottery-hands-425-000-charity-food-bank-Birmingham.html

www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/Emergency-parcels-help-struggling-families-food/story-13319675-detail/story.html

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2059238/Army-veteran-Mark-Mullins-wife-Helen-driven-suicide-poverty.html

They fully intend to cut benefits and penalise large families. Read the green gurus and you can see what is coming down the pipeline. But it's all based on a lie. We need more people to support our society. That's why they bring immigrants in to make up the declining birth rate gap, and immigrants are prepared to work for low wages. They want to restrict the population and make up the gap with immiigration.

Read about the Fabian socialists like George Bernard Shaw and HG Wells and you can see where this eugenicist type attitude comes from. They believe that some people are inferior to them and they want to restrict their growth.

The problem with having a government who knows they could be out on their ear within four years stops any of them from implementing any really fantastic long term policies because they are only judged on that snapshot of the country during the time they are in office.

As for the gnawing hunger of the soul - yes. I can relate to that. The reason I have a gnawing hunger of the soul is that I don't have to worry about filling my children's bellies.

But why are the families struggling? If you have enough money to feed your family, why are your family then going hungry?