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

Might get them a bigger house though. I know someone who said this and then ended up falling pregnant with twins. The council did not grant them a bigger house for years so there were 5 of them in a 2 bed. She never stopped moaning about it.

Also £800 doesn't touch the sides but these children are deprived and don't get the stimulation or life they deserve, childcare is in front of the TV, food is processed and beige, it's so sad. We don't need more deprived children and stressed out council parents in this country.

Let's not encourage it.

Men can 🤷‍♀️ They can get away with not paying, not supporting and moving on with their life. Maybe if this system was fixed then women wouldn’t be the ones struggling.

would a population drop really be such a bad thing?
I am aware that for a growing economy, we need a growing population. (This is, on very simple terms). Maybe our market economy system is outdated and we need new, fresh ideas?

Well that's a huge topic and one I would love to know the answer to.

Does economic growth only happen as you get more and more people, or is there a point where you can say x million people can be productive enough to support x million people plus a growth in well being, health, housing, standards of living.

Or would x million births for x million people mean we could only survive at a basic level with no prospect of improved life opportunities?

There's the answer, support the low income families even more to keep having children for the future of this country.

How about STOP taxing and taxing more and more to the middle class families who are working around the clock, not receiving any free childcare hours, or benefits, sending them to nursery or childminder so they themselves can work to pay for their family and the lower income ones.

Maybe then middle class families can afford more than 1 child. I know far too many who have stopped at 1 because they're on the brink in reality vs 'wealthy' on paper.

There is no 2 child cap on child benefit. There js so much confusion around this point. If you have 3 children and are eligible (ie earn under £60k) then please do claim for them all.

The 2 child cap relates to the child benefit element of UC and it would be worth £3k+ per year. It's a safety net. Say someone had 3 children and their partner died or left them on their own, it's not always a choice to be poor and have 3 children, and it's leaving children in poverty (with no demonstrable impact on birth rate).

I think they should get rid of it.
I was a child, dragged up by an irresponsible mentally unstable woman who had no business having one child let alone five.
She hasn't had a job since 1979 and me and my siblings lived in poverty.. this rule would have made zero difference to her choices it would have made it worse for children who were already desperate.
I don't know the answer but taking money away from children who are already at a disadvantage isn't the way.
I'm obviously only speaking from my own experience but from how I remember it, we had free school meals and cheap food at home (hardly ever fresh fruit as an example)
We also never had the heating on, my mother always had cigarettes though.
Maybe a system that paid part cash and the rest in supermarket vouchers and electric and Gas top ups?
By the time I had my own child in the early 2000s the there seemed to have been improvements. I received Tax credits top ups for going back to work and I also received payments towards a childminder in the school holidays, I also found Sure Start and Home Start extremely useful, I've no idea if this is still around now though.

I think that money would be better spent on things like increasing statutory maternity pay, sorting out childcare, investing in schools etc.

We’d love 3 children, but couldn’t afford it so won’t.

Is the additional £68 a month really the absolue clincher on having another child and make a massive difference to people? If so, you would probably need to consider if you can afford another child and if it’s the right thing to do.

I don’t have kids either, mainly because I am not in a position to afford them yet.

I think there should be no child benefit at all tbh, we should pay less taxes. Families paying less tax can spend it on what they need.

The precursor to child benefit, the family allowance, was introduced in 1946, to help large families (there was little contraception) and to encourage parenthood after the war.

All women in this country are able to access contraception so have no excuse and it's clear that recent governments are of the opinion people are more than capable of parenthood despite quite a lot of evidence to the contrary.

I don't know what I think really .

But I really do think the benefit cap should not include rent. I believe this is one of the reasons people on benefits can no longer private rent. There is a housing crises within social housing. There are are thousands of families in temporary accommodation. There would probably be alot less if the cap did not include rent.

And no people should not have to move well out of their area. That they were born in or lived for many years, away from their support systems etc . That would definitely be social cleansing.

£68 per month is child benefit. There is no 2 child cap on child benefit

From gov.uk
"There’s no limit to how many children you can claim for."

Sorry totally disagree, I could only afford two children, so that was it, at no point did I expect other peoples tax to pay for my children.

MC families are the ones paying all the taxes that support poorer families.

Unless you're a very right wing libertarian who doesn't believe in taxation at all, then... surely you accept that's the whole point if taxation? For richer people to subsidise services for everyone, including and especially the less well off?

I mean, I position myself as more right wing than average but even I fully accept that I (or my household as a whole) am paying more into the Treasury than lower income households are.

And I've already said I'm in favour of childcare subsidies for everyone, including you, and yes even including those on over £100k.

I agree with the cap. Two children is a reasonable amount. It will encourage people to have more when they can’t afford it and no one needs more than 2 kids. Then the problem of poverty will get worse, more houses will be needed to house the larger families and the more bedrooms the higher the rent etc and the cycle continues….

There are people that can’t have any and some people begrudge IVF funding on the NHS (I don’t) I think it should be offered as having is a biological urge for many women but having 3 is a lifestyle choice.

The money should be given to the parents of disabled children to help financially as caters allowance is a pittance!!! £300 or just over a month….. disgusting and if they can find the money for child benefit for everyone then they should absolutely find the money for parents of disabled children 😠

In theory I think a two child cap on benefits is reasonable. However having stopped at two because that's what I could afford then having a third in what I thought was a settled relationship I can see how it really does impact women. I get a reasonable child maintenance so I'm just about ok, many women don't get child maintenance and this is the problem.

Make men pay for their children. That's more the way I would lean

Totally disagree! Families don’t need to have more than two children and if they want to they can fund it themselves

Yeah cause it's a legitimate thing to do to prevent / slow the expansion of Russia

I do understand why they did it. People on universal credit now get about £287 for their second child and a bit more for their first. If they had 5-6 children that is more money some would get working.

Also I don't think child benefit is capped at two children but the child element of universal credit is.

It's not a problem if couples actually stopped and thought that their circumstances might change and either stop at 2 or make whatever arrangements are needed to manage the extra children they decided to have.

You aren't forcibly sterilised you just have to accept that you won't get state handouts. Many middle class parents aren't happy about VAT being added to private school fees. They still have the choice, it's just more expensive

Ah okay, so I need to research more into it! I always thought it was just child benefit.

It's not just child benefit but universal credit aswell. So if we pay for 3 or more children that's child element plus the child care element and extra rent for each child, this adds up it would cost £3.4 billion just to cover the children already born who are currently excluded per year and you can add to that all the children yet to be born it's unsustainable and asking people who only had the children that they could afford to pay for other people's poor choices is wrong

I'm with Rosie on this one.

One of the reasons I enjoy mn is because I get to talk to women who I'd never ever meet in my everyday life. You give insight and advice from your experiences which differ greatly from my own Jeremy Kyle car crash youth. And it's appreciated. I understand why women who've actively chosen 1/2 dc so they can invest in their children's futures more, giving them holidays, better education, even nicer food, whatever their priority feel annoyed some women will just churn out dc and expect others to pick up the tab. I understand that frustration.
But often, you've had (not everyone!) Experiences that mean you feel that way because you want your dc to have nice things. So many of these women haven't had anything nice. Poverty is so complex. Not everyone gets out, even with the tools to do so. I've worked as a cleaner with a woman who could have joined mensa but couldn't believe she was worth more than cleaning toilets at a nursing home, because that's what her mum and nanny did.

I'm from poverty myself, my reading and literacy were almost non existent until my mid 20s and all my jobs have been minimum wage.
Most the mothers I know are in receipt of UC, not to say unemployed although many are, but often working NMW jobs.
I've realised as someone who's made sure that having my desired number of dc wouldn't affect my others financially and had massive age gaps to accomplish this, that many of the women I know who want more dc don't always give it much thought. Certainly not as much as the posters here.
It's often because they're already poor, the one more won't hurt mentality. I've known women have different fathers so get pregnant after a relationship end so they're not lonely on weekends.
Some are just from generation upon generation of poverty and its very normal to have between 4-6 kids and its just how it is. You struggle. If you've never had a holiday, never driven a car, never eaten in a restaurant, you know no different.

I don't agree with the cap, the children here aren't to be going malnourished because of their parents choices.

I believe we need to educate children from early on about how to budget, save, the old fashioned cutting cloth accordingly.

I was taught absolutely fuck all about money or anything else and I've learnt through trial and error. I'd have had a lot less errors if I'd have been taught how to do these things in school. I think we need to start teaching young kids now, not just ones in lower socially economic areas, but across the board that having children you can't afford perpetuates the poverty cycle. I know, life skills aren't the schools jobs, but take my own parents, they weren't equipt to raise a child, they didn't have the intelligence to discuss finances, nutrition, safe sex.

I'm 35 years old and I have known 2 single dad's I'm that time and both had their mothers doing lions share of the parenting for the grandkids. We know women get left with the kids and often get no financial support from absent fathers. It's not everyone else's job to pick up the bill for these kids but the alterative is hungry kids, without basics such as toiletries and dental hygiene products, even nappies, no proper clothing, shoes, bedding.
With the lack of libraries open now, without devices or WiFi kids can't do homework.

Those kids without being invested in now will never ever break the cycle of poverty. I think we can at least try.

It's not child benefit full stop. You can claim child benefit for 3, 4, 5 etc children provided that you earn under the earnings cap. The 2 child cap only affects the child care element of UC and TC. The reporting of this cap is incredibly misleading.

“I've known women have different fathers so get pregnant after a relationship end so they're not lonely on weekends.”

Well shouldn’t society have a view and a boundary on that? Or do we just keep pouring taxpayers’ money on such stella parenting so they can keep repeating the cycle and create more and more children who think fecklessness and fatherless and benefits is the norm? Where does it end?

Shouldn’t we all expect some basic level of ‘reasonableness’ when it comes to family planning and child welfare? Lots of people limit families due to income. Having loads of kids because of poor education, poverty or ignorance, and condemning them to the same is not civilised.

I think the message of a two child cap on UC - even if they’re ignorant of it - is reasonable. It’s not ‘monstrous’. It’s sensible. And the government can support poor children in other more directed and useful ways than just throwing money at the parents.