Child Trust Funds Scrapped

[msjayjay]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10146734.stm
Well this was expected but not sure how to feel looks like I will just get in but is it a great upset to parents to be ?

I am a parent and think that they were a very wasteful resource on public funding. I do feel that the gov't has to make cuts and some of the funding with families does need to go like this. Yes I think that Child Tax credits should be cut as well. We are a single income household over the threshold but money is still tight at the best of times but I don't think that £50 000 is a reasonable limit. I think it should only be available for the poorest families.

I do think that children are important to our society as they are required to sustain each future generation (pensions, etc) however we have to be careful to not just hand money over.

The CTF has increased saving for children in lower income families by a massive amount. Zoe Williams has written a fairly good article www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/may/25/child-trust-funds-zoe-williams

Max124.

I'm a bit ambivalent about them, tbh. I think the money could have been better spent on financing Children's Centres or projects targetted at genuinely deprived areas. But - they do seem to have encouraged moderate saving in low-income households, which is a good thing, no? Agree with mamatomany that we need to brace ourselves for a backlash against parents, which is short-sighted and sad.

Incidentally, we top our child fund up monthly - DH has been putting a bit in every month. I think it's a great idea to be able to have a lump sum of money when DS is 18, for something really important.

I thought they were a good idea to encourage people to save, but that the £250 wasn't enough money to make a real difference anyway. We'll probbaly set up a savings account ourselves, but I know many people wouldn't - but would those people carry on contributing to a child trust fund anyway?

TBH I don't really object to max124's opinion. We live on an estate where about half of the properties are housing association owned. Our old neighbours were a family who had more children that they didn't want to and couldn't look after, in order to get a bigger council house. None of them worked - and the kids freely told us that dad spent his benefits in the pub & the bookies! The kids were often dirty, got very little parental attention and were generally a bit neglected. We found it very annoying that we were waiting to start a family so that we could afford to do so, and that we were struggling to pay our mortgage, when they got given a bigger house by popping out more unwanted kids (the 7th got them moved).

Most parents pay taxes (as a couple if one stays as home) and many SAHMs used to work and pay taxes themselves! Most people would want to strive to give their kids a good life too - I can't imagine there are many people who bother to come on to Mumsnet who are like the family I described above, but some people do give others a bad name.

I do think that there is something wrong with a society where refusing to work and having kids you don't want, means that you can be better off than people who want to work to get a good life for their children!

So poor people shouldn't be allowed to have children, they should just be for the rich?

And japhrimel you are better off than them if you own your own home? Maybe they did get a bigger house (and i know there are plenty of people with kids crammed into ridiculously small council houses, so doesn't always work), but they live there with seven children! I'm sure you're more comfortable than they are.

Oh forgot to add - one of the nice things about ctf's was that that money couldn't be spent 'in the pub & the bookies' - its locked away for that child until they are 18.

I agree with Zoe Williams: "On the level of social justice, its scrappage is dispiriting." I think they should have kept it for those on a low income.