Frank Field: stop stigmatising single mothers; take away benefits from bad fathers instead

[longfingernails]

Another excellent suggestion by Frank Field.

If Labour had listened to Frank Field, John Hutton and James Purnell then our welfare system would be in much better shape.

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jun/28/poverty-tsar-shirking-fathers-lose-benefits

LadyBlaBla I am more optimistic - almost all Tories have a great respect for Frank Field, and whilst there are many unreconstructed Thatcherites on the backbenches, David Cameron is definitely more in the one-nation Tory mould.

The "social justice" agenda within the Conservative party has slightly too many Christian overtones for my liking but it is definitely there.

And Iain Duncan Smith knows he will never be Prime Minister. Tackling welfare dependency and social deprivation at its source is his ultimate and only goal. I think he will be very sympathetic to Frank Field's ideas.

About time they focused on the fathers. Single mums didn't actually get pregnant by themselves but at least they are bringing up their children.

It is an absolute disgrace that 2/3 of absent fathers pay no money at all to their children.

I told the csa where ds1 and ds2 dad worked the restuarnt he part ownwed at on epoint the new hpus ehe brought for his other dc but when they finally caught up with him they decided as he had 2 more dc by then and with all his outgoings his contributations were nill

Ds3 and dd dad well they just cut matinece to £1,20 a week as he applied for reduction due to new baby yet he has still amnged to buy a new car not bad for a man who reckons to ill to work and to poor to help with his dc seeing them to

Absolutely, Giddy! I never understood these whines that somehow a person has an inaliable right to procreate with someone who has already fathered children and his income shouldn't be compromised to pay for those children. Oh, he's so hard done by, having to pay for children he fathered in the past and now we can't afford one, two, what have you.

Tough!

That's why I never went out with a guy who had kids, and if I found out he had kids I dumped him, because where I come from, a person, male or female, is expected to pay for the upkeep of those children, first and foremost, until they are 18. So he'd need to be pretty rich.

Quite rightly!

Why should the taxpayer be left holding the baby?

You lay, you pay.

And what does it say about a person, to want to procreate with a person who ditched their kids?

I always find it intersting when they say that if people don't toe the line they will remove their benefits entirely.

But won't the consequence of that be worse, and more expensive, than the benefits in the first place?

As Chil1234 said, there are many, many women now who don't put any man's name on the birth certificate.

You are not allowed to put the father name down unless either -you are married or the father is presnet in the room - that has basicly been the rules since 1837 when civil registration started - a blank back then meant a bastard child, this has changed as society has changed but the rle stayed either the father was presnt or the woamn was married - then the fathers name could be entered in the blank.

oh mine is a shit he does not want a retard son his words not mine.so cant see why he should pay for him becuase in his words i get fecking dla that should cover it

"And what does it say about a person, to want to procreate with a person who ditched their kids?"

so true Expat. To me this would be a massive red flag. Why would anyone date a man that doesn't pay for his own children?

giddy - that is just one year though of biorths registered though - think of every year that births are registered

No Ivy, it's not 7% every year, it's 7% on average.

7% versus 3/5 of fathers not paying any maintenance and those who do mainly paying peanuts.

What's the bigger problem, d'you think?

Women do not always know that men have children by previous relationships. Men of this sort are not always entirely honest.

True and to be fair the men often lie about the nature of their relationship with the DC's and the ex.

Ex is always a bitter, grasping harpy who won't let him see the kids and he's paying his fair share of maintenance.

And most women are influenced by the mysogynist myths about single mothers and nice Dads and they like the guy, so they give him the benefit of the doubt and believe him. They're also influenced by the prevailing attitude that children are basically the responsibility of women, not men, so it doesn't strike them as outrageous that if a man doesn't live with his children, they are only entitled to a few crumbs from his table, not to participate in the feast.

Then they come a cropper when a few years down the line they find out what he's really like, when he does the same all over again to them.

do sorry herb - what you are saying that on average the children that have been born and registered - what since when is 7%? do you mean all the children alive in 2008 that have been registered - so even those that are grown up?

I am really not getting where you get this figure form of 7%? not that it really matter - but I don't understand and tired

but in anycase - I was just stating fact in my other post - you are not allowed to [put down the fathers name if you are not married and the father is not in the room - I quoted form soemone else - or did you take the first sentance to be mine?

Yes it's right that you're not allowed to put the man's name down. This is to protect men - believe it or not, there has always been a legal obligation to pay maintenance for your child in this country, even if they were illegitimate. So the way men got out of it, pre blood tests and DNA, was to get all their friends to declare that they too had slept with the woman and therefore the baby could have been anyone's.

The rule about not putting a man's name down was introduced to stop women putting down the name of "innocent" men who could then be sued for maintenance - because we all know what lying bitches women are, it was a huge problem them declaring that Johnny whom they'd been walking out with for 2 years was the father of their child, when poor Johnny was declaring that she's shagged half the men in the village. (I'm sure there were a few women who put down the wrong man's name - usually their husband's - but the number of fathers who successfully denied paternity, was far greater of course.)

Viz 7%, it sounded as if you were saying that it was 7% one year, then the next, making 14% then the next, making 21%, etc. Sorry I was being thick and reading you wrong.

The 7% figure is from the ONS btw.

I think Frank talks alot of sense. It always used to irk me that a friend of mine hated the fact that her bf had kids with his ex. She hated them and the fact they had to pay for them, he quit his job to be a stay home dad so that they didn't have to pay for the mum to go to Spain with his meagre CSA payments!! She even said that if they were killed in an accident she wouldn't be bothered at all!! She was really nice to them till they married and then it got to the point where he doesn't see them anymore. I think men should pay for the kids they already have first but it is amazing how many people say 'well lifes not ideal what about the new family, aren't I entitlked to new happiness, they are here now' etc etc

My BIL convinced my SIL to have a baby with him and then walked out on them when DN was 1, on the grounds that, and I quote almost verbatim, "this wife and kids shite wasn't really how he had thought it would be".

A couple of years and girlfriends later, he turned up at SIL's house with wife 2 and smacked SIL in the face. Wife 2 shouted "It's all you deserve for the way you treated him!". Then they drove off.

Not sure what kind of lovely yarn he'd spun his new wife, but DN used to refuse to visit them because his new step sisters bullied him. He was 5, they were ten years older.

Oh, and BIL refused to pay any maintenance at all because, in his own words, "I have responsibilities to my new family now".

What a catch.

jellybeans that is so true, I have heard that countless times too.

At the moment it is 20% of NRP net income given as maintenance for two kids [15% for one] regardless of age by the CSA [if they can catch them, and it's starightforward I beleive]. And the resident parent-just what percentage of thier income is spent on clothing, housing, feeding the children?!!!

What gets me is that if NRP has more children, his first 'set' then get less as more of the nrp income is protected [10%]. I think that is unfair as the nrp has had new children with new partner so they have 2 incomes while LP who is RP gets even less?
Something not right there.

Not sure about benefits being taken away completely but a spot of community service might be good for those who don't cough up .

As for lp's who don't name fathers-their choice and as for some not wanting maintenance; again there could be loads of reasons for this and again-their choice.

btw, agreed re dating guys with 'previous'.

I find this all rather sad and 1950ies.