'Rape clause' row as Keir Starmer says Labour will not scrap two child benefit cap

[IwantToRetire]

Sir Keir Starmer has confirmed that Labour will not scrap the two-child benefit cap and the so-called rape clause.

In an interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, the Labour leader refused to be drawn on a number of other spending commitments but was definite on the policy recently described by his Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Jon Ashworth as “heinous”.

The two-child policy was introduced by George Osborne in his 2015 budget. It came into effect in 2017 after MPs backed the measure in the House of Commons.
It means that households claiming child tax credit or universal credit are unable to claim for a third or subsequent child born after 6 April 2017.

Earlier this week, the latest statistics revealed that 1.5 million children were growing up in families impacted by the cap. Children's charities, including Barnados and the Child Poverty Action Group have said this "tax on siblings" is the "biggest driver of rising child poverty in the UK today."

https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/rape-clause-row-keir-starmer-090500712.html

There are lots of posters on FWR who feel alienated from Labour, some have even been kicked out.

But then other posters say anything is better than the Tories.

So without listing all the sins of the Tories, it would be really interesting to see information of proposed and actual Labour policies that will be good for women.

I mean actualyl centred on the reality of women's lives, not on the notion that women's rights should go to the back of the queue and women should sacrifice themselves for the "greater good".

Or in fact is the difference between the Tories and Labour wafer thin with nothing but self id being the dividing line.

Plus, it saves £1.6bn

But how much does it cost ?

Our local council could "save" millions of pounds by simply not fixing the roads, turning off streetlamps, and emptying the bins once a year.

Obviously someone else will have to pay to repair the cars, treat the injured and deal with the disease. But that's alright isn't it ?

@ArabeIIaScott it is isn't it? Can you imagine the uproar if well to do SAHMs were described as "sitting at home pushing out children". They are no less unemployed than the mums people love to look down on. There is a discussion to be had about benefits but derogatory language like that is awful.

Howpo
as I said don’t have children if you can’t afford them, with your way of thinking let’s just chuck endless money at people.

I won't flame you because I agree.

And it wouldn't eg count if you had one child and then twins.

Given the climate crisis we do not need to be encouraging people to have more than two children.

There's a case to do away with child benefit altogether and put the saved cash into early year's education instead. However, it would probably just end up in a general pot and be wasted.

There are lots of reasons people don't think immigration is the solution, and only has limited scope:

It's basically a ponzi scheme.

It has a rather unpleasant sense that you are importing less fortunate people to do the jobs natural citizens don't want. This tends to have economic consequence as well as social justice implications in terms of things like remuneration and worker protections, whether we like it or not.

It's harvesting the best workers from other countries, often after those other countries have paid to raise and educate those people through their own social systems.

And what no one on the left is ever willing to talk about - stable societies can absorb a certain number of new people, sometimes very successfully, but there are limits to that elasticity. The more language and cultural differences there are, or gaps in terms of thing like education, the more capacity is required to integrate people successfully. We can see all over Europe what happens when that capacity begins to be exceeded, and don't fool yourself that immigrants themselves are unaware of this. They don't want to be in unstable societies either.

It's harvesting the best workers from other countries, often after those other countries have paid to raise and educate those people through their own social systems.

I know. Good isn't it ? We learned about that in the second lecture of the course I did a few years back: "How the rich stay rich, and the poor stay poor"

Good to see so many old classmates here <waves> !

"It's harvesting the best workers from other countries, often after those other countries have paid to raise and educate those people through their own social systems."

We lose our own skilled labour as well. It's a kind of swap system.

It's all very well having a macro argument against immigration but if you are a skilled worker and can earn more overseas, good for you. We don't force our own nurses/doctors/mechanics to stay in the UK just because we educated them here, why be so elitist about it when they are 'foreign'

We don't force our own nurses/doctors/mechanics to stay in the UK just because we educated them here,

Don't you remember the fourth lecture ? About ensuring you encourage your own educated to piss off so they can't vote against you in future ? It was the module before the one about no need to be a citizen if you want to take advantage of the tax laws in the UK with Mrs. Sunak as a case study.

Funnily enough that is exactly what I encourage my kids to do.

Not so they don't vote against me but because this country doesn't deserve their tax.

I can't have been paying attention in lecture 4 but got the gist of it.

Agreed. Have them, pay for them.

As a matter of fact, just this month, it was reported that the government is considering how to force dentists to stay in the UK after they complete their training. That was casually dropped into an article saying the government sees no need to stop newly qualified doctors emigrating to Australia.

https://healthcareleadernews.com/news/no-need-to-act-to-stop-doctors-emigrating-to-australia-says-prime-minister/

No, it isn't a swap system, the UK is not sending great numbers of workers to the places migrants are looking to leave.

We don't stop people leaving the country because that would be deeply authoritarian and violate their human rights. They certainly have the right in a democratic society to go where they will be taken. So maybe they can immigrate to Canada and be a doctor, but maybe not to be a teacher, and probably not to Japan at all, at least permanently.

Most countries do consider it to be a problem when a lot of their best educated people leave to work elsewhere. It's a big deal in medicine, where the state pays for a lot of the training.

That doesn't make an economic policy that depends on attracting migrants to work here particularly ethical though.

Very true. Especially when you look at the average age of Conservative members. Although I haven’t noticed other parties rushing to remove it.

I’m fully in support of the 2 child cap!

The other parties know that any noises about axing the triple lock would simultaneously axe their chances of attracting floating voters in the post-retirement age brackets.

I've seen this exact same post now on several social media sites. Starmer isn't being blamed for introducing the cap, he's being rightly held to account for planning to continue with it.

Don’t people realise that they will benefit from the triple lock as well when they reach retirement, it has been woefully undervalued for decades

indeed.

We all remember the absolute meltdown in the media when it emerged the Tories weren't gong to scrap it either.

Well, they're not a drain on society, unlike those who expect everything handed to them. Funnily enough, those for whom benefits are a way of life have children who go on to be a drain on society too.

Good for Starmer. This country needs substantial tax cuts for low income households, not yet more handouts & entitlements for the middle classes.

What a vile thing to say about the children of poorer women. As for the rich women staying at home, they're not contributing to anything and will be consumers with a massive carbon footprint. Also, based on observations of the middle management level they'll become, their children are highly likely to be mediocre, expect everything to be handed to them on a plate and take up jobs, opportunities and spaces that should by rights got to far more talented kids.

I strongly suspect that by the time I reach retirement age, pensions will be means tested. I don't see how, with the level of debt the country has, there will be much choice.

It's not vile, it's just a realistic picture of a section of society. You're not living in the real world if you can't see how true it is. No-one should be better off on benefits than if they were working.

Are they? do you know how low benefit payments are, excluding housing costs.

The section of society you re talking about is tiny in the grand scheme of things, approx 330k people are long term unemployed and probably unemployable, why should an employer offer them work when they know nothing/have zero willingness to learn/cannot read or write/serious health issues?

11% of adults are supposed to be illiterate.

The vast majority on benefits are in work, doing essential jobs that pay very low wages, such as care, still a pretty much a NMW job but simply cannot make work pay regardless of how hard they work or the hours they do.

So whats your answer? the work house? because thats the logical solution to what you believe in.

Is that the definition of reverse snobbery?