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.

Dreaming - what about when you are 'on mat leave'? Twice in NMW jobs, I have lost my job through 'restructuring' when just about to start Mat leave - they get rid of the pg person and one other, so that it doesn't look like it's just because they're pg. They then advertise for ONE job to replace the other worker they got rid of. It's done like that so that they can get away with it - and they KNOW you can't get legal aid for employment tribunals, so you can't afford to do one. So you have no rights, and no way to prove it etc.

So you end up with ONE £11.8K income. Plus, with no state help...how do you pay the childcare, for even ONE dc, to go back to work FT? FT nursery here is £52 a DAY. NMW is only £45.68 before tax - which would mean that MORE than one wage would go on childcare - FOR ONE DC. How do you figure that you would be able to survive? Pay rent (no help from HB), council tax, all utilities, travel to work AND food out of LESS than one income if you went back to work? (Because you would be paying MORE than one FT NMW income for childcare).

Sorry, but that just isn't possible. Even with TWO FT NMW incomes - it isn't possible to even have ONE dc without state help. And if every NMW worker in the SE moved to a 'cheaper' area - 1) Who would then do all the NMW jobs that needed doing in the SE, and 2) There would then be so much competition wherever they MOVED to...that the same problems would occur. It would just be MOVING the problem elsewhere.

Tax Credits are a business subsidy, no more, no less.

Alouisee. . .

Ive always believed tc should be paid direct to employers.

Now, despite being a NMW worker when I am in employment, AND currently having 4dc - I would have NO problem with that IF it was backed up by a change in the NMW laws to MAKE the employer pay the employee a LIVING wage, not an unfeasibly low limit much less than Tax Credits were. A NMW that pays AT LEAST the current 'average' UK wage.

Surely THAT would encourage everyone whether on NMW or mega-bucks, to HAVE to consider their income before having more dc? (Not that I didn't, but I have explained my personal situation one too many times on these threads to be bothered, TBH).

Then that just leaves the feckless profligate unemployed people on IS or JSA to deal with - OH, hang on, wait a minute - the government already has...LOOK!. This takes care of all the minimum wage jobs, so the Government can just not worry about it - why should they pay the employers to hire people on a LIVING wage, when they can pay the employers to hire them for £1.63 an hour? (The £65 JSA divided by 40 hrs). So then the NMW workers will have no jobs...and will then be forced onto this program. .

The Government really has covered all it's bases in arse-licking big business, and screwing anyone on less than £20K pa, haven't they!

I'm going to go and buy a cap to doff, so I'm ready for 2013. I'll need to practise my boot-licking skills too.

Hunty Bitter. Very bitter.

hunty - out of interest what do you then think should happen to the pay of people who are currently on the current 'average' wage? Do they just accept that people they may be supervising earn the same as them now or are they going to want an increase to maintain the differentials hence increasing inflation and making the wage increase to 'average' wages meaningless?

The thing to remember is that the NMW is exactly what it says on the tin. The MINIMUM.

Worker's come from all ages and all sorts of backgrounds. Moaning that the NMW is not enough for raising a family completely misses the point that for some people it's fine.

For a single person, school leaver or a retired person then the NMW could well be enough.

Plus how do you just force employers to raise their wages to the average? Surely an average is the erm....average of both high & low earners. If you raise the NMW to what is now the average then you just push the average further away?? And that's assuming it's even possible. Most employers would probably struggle to simply magic the money from nowhere.

Lastly if you want to raise wages per hour then I'd argue the best thing to do is overhaul tax credits. It's become a huge dodo and has allowed businesses to employ many part time staff safe since tax credits makes up the difference. And it's meant lots of people are put off working full time. I mean why work full time when you can work part time instead? It's great for the person involved of course but no good at all for the economy.

"No one is suggesting taking anything away from any current children. Just a preventative measure for the future."

If you really think this will stop people having children you are living in cloud cuckoo land.

What it will do in reality is push many children further into poverty.
Why would you want that?

threefeet as I've already explained, free hot breakfasts and free hot lunches for all school children.

If we are going to be honest here, the sort of parents who are living hand to mouth and yet still choose to go ahead and have yet more children knowing there will be no increase in funding are going to be the sort of parents where the children are already living in poverty of one description or another.

Being poor does NOT mean you are incapable of cooking a nutritious meal for your dc. I find that suggestion insulting - that I should let someone else decide what food is necessary for my DC to survive, and I am allowed no input into that. And if the school dinners that my dc receive as FSM's are anything to go by - the meals would be woefully inadequate, allow for no personal preferences, and I still INSIST on cooking my dc a proper, home cooked meal every day. Harry, what you are describing is what FSM's are meant to be - hence an even lower amount of IS etc - but I challenge you to go into a variety of local primary schools and sample the meal they provide. And then tell me if it would be enough to satisfy an 11 yo dc from midday till the following morning. . They allow the school cooks less money per dc than they allow for meals in hospital or prison...

Good grief, Hunty! It's not all about you and your personal situation and why you need to be dependent on the state forever so feel hard done by because of it.

FFS, we get free birth control in this country, free sterilisation (except HuntyCat, of course), free terminations, extra top ups of cash per child, and people are still bitching about the possibility the top up of cash per child won't be increased after FOUR children and how awful this is.

lol school dinners have you seen what makes up a free school dinner at senior level !! 3 spuds a piece of meat one spoon of vedge and gravy plus either a drink or acookie

now while that may be ok for a infant child that would not go far for my 6 foot teenager

thats actually ignoring the fact that even though he is entitled to it .He can not eat it as he is g/f and dairy free as he can not tolerate due to having crohns .

i have to agree like hunty does not mean i am incapaerable of cooking a proper meal .Infact tend to cook from scratch

'All Tax Credits are, in reality, is a business subsidy allowing employers to pay less than a LIVING WAGE to their employees. We are not talking about a living wage in India or China, but a living wage in the UK, before anyone starts that argument, that working for 2p a day and a handful of rice is fine for people in those countries.'

I've always thought this.
It's the price we pay for all the chap clothes and electrical goods anyone can have now.

But eminen it is about the likes of Hunty and personal situations like hers. how is that making it all about "her"? You want to stop people who work for a low income from having the choice to have more than 4 children. It's not ALWAYS a choice. I for instance was infertile, as was DH. DD1 was born as a result of frozen embryo transfer. 5 years later and after being told the chances of us having a child naturally were nil, I fell pregnant naturally. When DD2 was 6 months old, I had an a stomach bug and my pill must have been thrown back up. DD3 was conceived. We could afford these children at the time but when we suffered huge financial problems, we couldn't. What do you suggest we do? I can't afford my children but they're here. Everyone's story is different. Not everyone has the thought "oh I'll have X kids cos the State will provide for me".

fanny if you stopped to take a breather and actually read teh fecking thread you would be able to argue with more coherency.

It will not affect Hunty as she is having no more children. It will not affect you as you only have three.

The money will only stop for children as yet unconceived.
How many times do you have to be told that whilst you rant and spittle about fascists and killing off children and so on and so ridiculously forth.

Because harry it makes no difference how many children we choose to have - once they are here there is sod all that can be done and my circumstances could also have involved another child. That's what I'm referring to, not how many children we have but how people can hit difficulties and the children are born and they weren't conceived to sponge off the state. I don't need to open my eyes "mate" - its the likes of you who think they have a solution. It's bollocks. It's too complicated and there are always going to be people who need assistance from the Welfare State. You can't make children suffer by plucking a magic number of appropriate children allowed per family then reduce the help.

How many times do you have to be told that whilst you rant and spittle about fascists and killing off children and so on and so ridiculously forth.

Pot? Kettle? Black? Much?

You're positively frothing, Harry.

I am having no more dc because I have a level of education that is high enough to allow me to see that it is hard enough to bring up 4 dc well in the circumstances I find myself in. Not everyone I know HAS that level of education, to be able to see that having any more dc would be folly, no matter whether the state will pick up the tabor not. I want to be able to give my best to my dc, I can cope with 4 dc, give each of them the time they need, any more than that is beyond MY capabilities.

Yes, the money will only stop for children as yet unconceived - but that will not stop contraception accidents from happening. With the best will in the world, for most people (other meds excepted) , hormonal contraception is only 99% effective IF TAKEN PROPERLY - which means that for every 100 women on the pill, TAKING IT CORRECTLY, ONE WILL fall pregnant. Are they then meant to terminate if it against their morals / beliefs / wishes? I personally would ONLY terminate a pregnancy if I was raped - and possibly not even then. Did you know that at 9 weeks, a foetus has a central nervous system? And therefore, IMO can feel pain.

What do you say to those 1 in 100 women who fall pregnant despite using their hormonal contraception properly? Oh, you were unlucky, now you must terminate - what if they already have 4 dc, that were planned and born before this rule came in, then they had a contraceptive failure?

Again - Hormonal contraception is AT BEST 99% effective if taken properly, which means that 1 in every 100 women taking it properly will fall pg.

No she's not and moreover Fanny is choosing not to hear a very simple message.

'It's too complicated' No it isn't.

'You can't make children suffer' Who said anyone was planning to do that?

That is frothing at the mouth talk, not Harry's.

Oh 'ere we go.
Ranty pro-life stuff.

I know, let's draw up a spreadsheet and everyone can decide what families deserve help and which ones are "spongers". Then you can look at each of the excess born children and decide whether they're worthy of extra CB or tax credits, you know, look
at their SATs and see if they look like future tax payers. And that's not fascist?