The two-child benefit cap is social cleansing. Starmer must end it - Rosie Duffield

[IwantToRetire]

In an outspoken challenge to her leader, Labour’s Rosie Duffield says Tory rules penalising women with three or more children are worthy of The Handmaid’s Tale

Key points

• Labour MP condemns “anti-feminist and unequal” legislation, especially its “rape clause”
• Sir Keir Starmer has said scrapping the law is unaffordable at present
• More than a dozen backbenchers are forcing the issue with an amendment to the King’s Speech
• Like her friend JK Rowling, Duffield has previously attacked Labour’s record on women

The two-child limit is a feminist issue. It is a heinous piece of legislation and the reason above all others that I was driven to stand as a member of parliament. With the introduction of such a sinister and overtly sexist law, I was propelled towards Westminster to stop it.

article continues at https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/rosie-duffield-mp-two-child-benefit-cap-scncpn9dd

and at https://archive.ph/5On4a

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Caring compassionate people like you SHOULD have more children (only if you/they want obviously) imagine a generation raised by role models who understand that some things are more important than money and status. Especially seeing the alternative demonstrated by some pps seems to be heading towards Eugenics.
A lot of families are victims of intergenerational poverty, awful education ending with no useful qualifications, and are treated like scum by many in government, media and wider society.
We should be finding ways to change that rather than punishing the children.

Yes

It's all a bit melodramatic

I've had 3 and we were cash strapped, that's how it was.

I got CB and possibly £500:tax credit that replaced the married man's allowance

Please don't feel like you have to justify yourself to that deeply unpleasant poster.

Some of the replies on this thread show a breathtaking snobbery and lack of understanding and empathy.

It seems for some posters here, feminism includes only the correct, socially approved type of women.

The problem is that it would be evident that it isn't enough

Then surely that would be a good thing? The energy companies would soon start kicking up a fuss if they weren't getting adequate money from the government.

Coming late to the party so havent read the full thread.

Of course it isnt social cleansing, what a misuse of that phrase

We do need a declining birth rate world wide, and that isnt happening, countries need to organise their social and economic arrangements to manage employment need and care needs and may include huge amounts of immigration. Thats fine, its happened before over thousands and hundreds of years.

It will again. There is nothing special about us at this time. In a thousand years people will look back the same we we look back at the 1100s.

I suppose. I actually think energy should be nationalised

Thank you so much for your lovely words! X

I hugely believe that care work is a feminist issue also so I'm often defending it. Again thank you 😊

I worked as a care assistant years ago, loved it. It should pay much more than it does!

And the whole we need more high income families to have more children rather than lower income families makes me laugh, my oldest dc is a net contributor , it looks very likely that ds2 will be too so they should have more children but not me who raised them 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

This. I pay a lot of taxes already. It's not up to me and my family to pay for other people's children when I limited my own family size.

The responses in this thread just go to show the extent to which Tory ideology has been normalised. That's the most lasting effect of years of austerity.

I don't like caps structured this way, because it gives the sense that children are like pets or luxury products. They're neither, they are people, and citizens, and they should all be equal in the eyes of the state.

That being said, if there are going to be family supports like this, it's not unreasonable that there might be a maximum amount. It could be done in a different way.

I'm quite divided on benefits though. On the one hand, I think children are a social good, and they are expensive for parents. So society as a whole needs to contribute to raising them, for our own good.

In societies with no social welfare capacity, every family must have children to ensure that they will be cared for in the future. It's the same in our society, but because we are able to spread around the benefitfit of the children and their productivity, many people can afford not to have children of their own. If we lived in a different kind of society, they would be screwed. Parents should not bear the whole burden of work that will benefit all.

That being said, in many ways wealth transfer amounts to corporate welfare, and it can suppress wages. It also pushes parents into paid work (good for the state) when working for themselves (ie unpaid work) might actually be preferable and make more economic sense.

“I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.”

“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”

“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

(The establishments Scrooge referred to were Prisons, Union Workhouses, The Treadmill and The Poor Law).

I'm a bit wary of the comments saying people who have decided that they cannot afford another child. In my experience this can mean anything from having a third would be a huge financial hardship to not being able to afford a third set of private school fees without giving up some other luxury.

People's expectations of how much children need to cost varies wildly.

2.1 may be replacement rate, but as there are people who stop at 0, 1 & 2 by choice or through circumstances, it isn't unreasonable to make sure we are providing a reasonable safety net to families who have the temerity to have 3 or more kids before being made redundant or having a disabling accident. An average of 2.1 doesn't mean we don't need families with 3+.

Birthrates are falling precipitously worldwide.

I don't think this is a topic that's divisive amongst feminists because I don't see much feminist analysis on this thread.

The cap was introduced at a time when social housing existed and mothers were at the front of the queue. That's no longer the case. Its unlikely that young women these days would choose to have more children to get a council house and live on benefits. The amount they would get wouldn't cover their rent and living expenses.

The women who are being penalised by the cap now are more likely to be women who have been unlucky; who's partners have left them, or died. Or who are in abusive relationships and don't have control over their contraception.

Birthrates are falling precipitously worldwide.

And it doesn't seem five minutes since we were all worrying about an over-crowded planet. Have to say, though, I've read plenty of pieces lately convincingly arguing that this is a real issue, and I don't mean looney 'replacement theory' bollix.

(it's absolutely fine for people to decide for themselves that private school fees, bedrooms for every child, foreign holidays etc are part of the lifestyle they want for their offspring and limit family size on that basis. But different people value different things, and it isn't feckless to choose to have more children).

Is this like the tendancy to believe that reasonable speed to drive is the speed at which one is driving, and perceiving anyone slower as a doddering and anyone faster as a lunatic? We reckon whatever choices we've made around having kids is the right one?

Not suggesting people shouldn't have more than once child, nor should the decision be solely based on things out of their control- but do people really not consider at all that things could change?

I think the reality is that the British public have never agreed with Labour's benefits fire hose and these policies (benefits cap, child benefit cap, spare room tax and maximum housing benefit cap) were introduced after widespread public anger at stories such as these:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2155726/Somali-family-benefits-handed-keys--2million-luxury-council-home-Londons-affluent-streets.html

I'm a bit wary of the comments saying people who have decided that they cannot afford another child. In my experience this can mean anything from having a third would be a huge financial hardship to not being able to afford a third set of private school fees

It's called beeing financially responsible.

Surely you realise that if Putin wins, there won't be any point in any of us having children anymore though, so it's more important to support Ukraine than it is to remove a benefit cap?

Right? Its such an odd comment. Even if someone can't afford another because they wish to put them through private school anyway that's okay! I grew up in poverty and it was shit, I have lasting physical and emotional affects that will stay with me forever; we stopped at one because we want to give them a decent life, and if the worst should happen ie job losses, illness, death, divorce or whatever else then one is more manageable. I know some think it's a boring or sad way to live but I don't care.

Yes. The shit-stirring and nasty Tory ideology of the Daily Mail. Whilst we're praising the Mail for its take on gender, lets not forget what they're really all about. "Watch out, that immigrant wants to steal your biscuit" 😒

That Daily Mail article is a disgrace. Obvious someone left their house to the council to be used as social housing and it’s being used for exactly that. Nobody’s taxes went down as a result of Osborne’s ideological austerity cuts, did they?

We allowed them into the country, we sold off all the council housing and decided not to build anymore, so where exactly should they go?

This family were given the house under the Tory Govt.

Based on the article, the men of the family all seem to have jobs..... lack of scrutiny and enforcement perhaps?

But it was ever thus, when i was kid, a local guy had 2 "wives" 13 or 14 kids between them....

Personally, i'm not a fan of any sort of child benefit, you want kids, you pay for them but equally, if the argument is that we give child benefit etc, then it should not be limited to some random number, esp when we encourage immigration to attract workers to do low skilled jobs.

Aside, why is Rosie Duffy in the Labour party? like Braverman and the Tories, these MPs are at such loggerheads with their parties, it seems that they'd be better off in different ones, more attuned to their ideals.