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

I think a million or half a million tax free is enough for anyone @Pollensa76. Keep the threshold and raise the rate to 50% while removing all the loopholes. Nobody inheriting a two/three bed semi and nothing else is going to be liable for inheritance tax.

I think I understand your point, and agree with it in part, however I think we are too far gone now. Globalisation was an excellent thing once upon a time as it allowed access to new markets, frictionless borders etc. Trouble is, when people can buy cheap, they do, so demand for what we make here dropped. Moving to services, the bulk was financial services, and after Brexit a good deal of that has moved abroad, so we are left exporting a lot less than we buy.

I see your point about not having control too. Although we can choose our future based on the political party we collectively elect, when we are faced with the choices we have been over the last decade or so, it's like choosing between syphilis or gonorrhoea. We do have the choice of starting our own political party and being elected, but I doubt that would get very far, so it really is the aforementioned choice. Let's hope this lot do something a little more positive. I think the early signs are good, but it isn't going to be a quick fix.

Disclaimer: I’m not from the UK. But I thought this piece raised some concerning points.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/07/21/the-inhumanity-of-the-two-child-benefit-cap/

Between 2016 and 2019, the number of abortions in England and Wales grew by 11.7 per cent. Significantly, this increase was higher among women who already had children. Women with no children or one child sought out abortions at an increase of 10.3 per cent and seven per cent respectively. But for women with two or more existing children, this rose by 16.4 per cent. Surely, many of these mothers felt pressured by the benefit cap to terminate their pregnancies – regardless of whether or not they actually wanted to.

[…]

Social policy, it is argued, should encourage the poor to make different ‘choices’ and be denied support if they have ‘too many’ children. There is an ignorant callousness in the assumption that all women who become unintentionally pregnant can resort to abortion to keep their family size in check. That is simply untrue. Yes, for a growing proportion of women, abortion is used as another method of birth control. But for others, it is an unimaginable horror. And yet abortion is the only means for a married couple to prevent a third birth when all else fails.