What is this 2 child cap benefit anyway? Who does it affect?

far better to increase CB and provide sone if the things children need, such as a hot meal and affordable childcare

Good suggestion Doodledog, as well asa breakfast clubs for all chikdren, as the government propose. Children eligible for free school meals should continue that provision throughout school holidays

HousePlantQueen

biglouis

If you eat, the food will have been planted, harvested, and driven to you by a person who used to be a child. If you have a need for pharmaceuticals, these will have been developed, manufactured, and delivered by a range of people who used to be children. If you travel in a bus or a taxi, need surgery or dental work....there's a theme here, I think

Thats the kind of dumb argument my parents would have used.

The "theme" is that yes of course I use these facilities - and so do the breeders. So my taxes are still going to support "family life". However childfree people - the least selfish group in society - are not getting anything equivalent in return.

Breeders is a very ugly word.

It is.

Deliberately so.

It is a bitter recrimination against those who have children by individuals who like to convince themselves that they are superior selfless beings - and should be rewarded for it.

I think yours is the most sensible, and fairest idea, across the board.

It's a huge undertaking though, unravelling it all.

MissAdventure

Who the allowance is forRate (weekly)
Eldest or only child£25.60
Additional children£16.95 per child

That is Child Benefit (the old Family Allowance). The cap is on the part of Universal Credit that is paid to families with children, and is a lot more than that - £333 a month for the first child and £288 a month for the second. This is on top of CB, housing and other benefits, subject to the overall benefit cap.

If people are given more for every subsequent child, those who work could be forgiven for seeing it as unfair, as wages don't rise if you have more children. Even at the lower rate, someone with five children would get nearly £1500 a month on top of other benefits.

I am not arguing against it - just saying that I can understand why people get fed up when many people are struggling with high housing and energy costs, and it can seem easier not to work, or to limit hours and get top ups than to work full time.

Far better IMO to increase CB, and to provide some of the things that children need, such as a hot meal a day and affordable childcare to everyone. That would also stop the determination of Some People to insist that benefits are spent on TVs and tattoos instead of the children for whom it was intended.

The two child cap has not worked. No matter how many people on here would have liked it to work and stop babies being born, it has not. All it has done is make children in households with more than two, poorer.
Why go on pretending that it is a deterrent, just admit that people don't care.

So, does charity really begin "At Home"?

Just with our own families?

I see nothing much to suggest it begins at home in the broad sense of the word, at times.

Mouse

I wish people would make their minds up. We are a country with a falling birth rate. Such that it means there will not be enough tax payers to pay for future pensioners. This can be rectified by immigration (a big no no to many) or increasing child birth ( apparently also a big no no). Or are we saying that only certain people should have children?

On child poverty, it sickens me that we have hungry children in this country. Homeless kids, kids literally without a bed to sleep in. For part of my childhood I experienced poverty. I know first hand what it can do to a child’s self esteem and their health. In a rich country like this one I thought we could at least largely solve the problem. Cathy Come Home was a wake up call to a generation . But I truly believe that as a nation we have become less caring. If the equivalent to this program was made now too many people would shrug their shoulders and mutter about the undeserving poor.

Mouse, I watched Cathy Come Home, a Wednesday Play, when I was baby sitting my younger sisters. I was 17. It influenced the politics that have been a constant part of my life since then. I didn’t learn about careers in probation/mental health/ social work for a few more years but eventually did 40 years.

I’ve known many children with no bed, no clean school uniform, not enough to eat and parents who could be described as feckless, incompetent or sad, depressed and without the family support thst aids resilience

biglouis

*If you eat, the food will have been planted, harvested, and driven to you by a person who used to be a child. If you have a need for pharmaceuticals, these will have been developed, manufactured, and delivered by a range of people who used to be children. If you travel in a bus or a taxi, need surgery or dental work....there's a theme here, I think*

Thats the kind of dumb argument my parents would have used.

The "theme" is that yes of course I use these facilities - and so do the breeders. So my taxes are still going to support "family life". However childfree people - the least selfish group in society - are not getting anything equivalent in return.

Breeders is a very ugly word.

Who the allowance is forRate (weekly)
Eldest or only child£25.60
Additional children£16.95 per child

Interesting thought MissAdventure!

TerriBull, Biglouis usually does refer to my disagreements with her as " dumb". In her defence, I am a " breeder" so this may contribute to her contempt of my viewpoints

I have three adult children and said for years that child benefit needed to be capped at two children because so many people were having large numbers of children and expecting the state to pay for their lifestyle (ie we taxpayers). Most of us limited our family size to the number we could afford: generally two or three children. I always felt that two was a fair number of children for the child benefit cap. It need not stop people like me having more than two children, but we should not expect the state to pay for them.

We never claimed benefits but we had a child we couldn’t afford as I didn’t want the alternative. Contraception used, child unplanned but very much wanted and loved. It happens. Maybe I’m a breeder. Maybe there are quite a few of us on Gransnet 😂

"That's the kind of dumb argument my parents would have used"

Why so dumb? Unless one lives like a hermit in splendid isolation, there is a co dependency that's a fact, even if one keeps themselves to themselves there is no doubt a multtude of services used. Interaction and coexistence is there in practically all societies, it's how we evolved from the earliest hunter gatherers. Even the more intelligent of other species, such as elephants have developed co-operation strategies to assist in the survival of their young. Of course we need to invest in the welfare of future generations, what's the alternative?

"No man is an island" John Donne

Calling people "breeders" comes across as contemptuous.

I wish people would make their minds up. We are a country with a falling birth rate. Such that it means there will not be enough tax payers to pay for future pensioners. This can be rectified by immigration (a big no no to many) or increasing child birth ( apparently also a big no no). Or are we saying that only certain people should have children?

On child poverty, it sickens me that we have hungry children in this country. Homeless kids, kids literally without a bed to sleep in. For part of my childhood I experienced poverty. I know first hand what it can do to a child’s self esteem and their health. In a rich country like this one I thought we could at least largely solve the problem. Cathy Come Home was a wake up call to a generation . But I truly believe that as a nation we have become less caring. If the equivalent to this program was made now too many people would shrug their shoulders and mutter about the undeserving poor.

Am I allowed to say this? I think biglouis enjoys winding people up and running away to watch the flak from a distance.
Either that or they are very ignorant and bitter. perhaps both

I have 4 AC and I know how lucky I am that I was able to be a 2 parent family who didn't need extra help from the state but I was raised by a widow, DF killed in an accident when we 3 were very small, so know from first hand how hard it was for her (and us)

With a widow's pension and hard work she was able to make sure none of us were disadvantaged financially
Thank goodness for the safety nets.

X posts Iam 👋

biglouis I think you have parcels collected or delivered to your house, your bins emptied etc. You are indeed a beneficiary indeed of other people’s kids enabling you to have a life.

Thanks MissAdventure, I was thinking along similar lines. I’m not sure if you’re serious, partly serious or winding people up biglouis. If you need medical treatment, as most of us will- it will be delivered by a medic who was once a child. Thank goodness for ‘breeders’. What a way to describe loving parents, who themselves will in the main, be people who work and pay taxes at the same time raising the next generation of plumbers, builders, teachers, medics, artists, musicians and more

Perhaps the childless should receive less services, considering they've done nothing to ensure a workforce to carry them out?

I'm sure there are facilities which some of us don't or will never us, but still pay for through our taxes. That's part and parcel of being a civilised society.

If you eat, the food will have been planted, harvested, and driven to you by a person who used to be a child. If you have a need for pharmaceuticals, these will have been developed, manufactured, and delivered by a range of people who used to be children. If you travel in a bus or a taxi, need surgery or dental work....there's a theme here, I think

Thats the kind of dumb argument my parents would have used.

The "theme" is that yes of course I use these facilities - and so do the breeders. So my taxes are still going to support "family life". However childfree people - the least selfish group in society - are not getting anything equivalent in return.

Maria59

Working parents have to make a choice as to how many children they can afford. It is totally immoral that non working parents can expect benefits for unlimited children. I also feel the child benefit system is flawed a family with one stay at home parent and one working parent earning over £60000 is penalised. A family with 2 working parents earning £59000 each is not

I agree with your first sentence, although I don't think morality comes into it - it's about fairness and political choice. That's why I think there should be a restructure of the system to give all children a good start, and that CB should be universal and not means-tested.

I'm less convinced about the second sentence. If there are two workers, both are contributing labour and taxes, and as a couple they will be paying for commuting, general work expenses and probably childcare. A family with one worker earning £59000 is a lot better off than one with two people on £30k each when you take that into account.

I think the cap discriminates against single parents, though. I would remove the means test, but I don't think that making two-worker families subsidise single-worker families is remotely fair.

biglouis

*immorality of keeping children in poverty because they were born to the wrong class of parent*

Why are we so mawkishly sentimental about so called "child poverty" Children contribute nothing to society until they are old enough to get a job and pay tax - assuming they are not low paid and so being subbed out by the taxpayer. Children consume huge amounts of resources and generate huge amounts of waste. As for their potential, they have just as much potential to become criminals, drug addicts or scroungers as they have to become a contributing member of the community.

Maybe if the children are hungry it will be more of an incentive for their parents to get up off their lazy backsides and work more than 16 hours a week (subbed out by the tax payer) or improve their qualifications and get a better paid job.

Oyr society seems to be all about supporting the scroungers and the no hopers and taxing those who work hard, budget responsibly and limit the children they do have.

Blimey biglouis that's quite a Dickensian outlook you have there.

"Children contribute nothing to society"

Firstly, we need to have more children being born to support an ageing population, that's the same throughout the western world.

Secondly, whether you like it or not the continuation of the species is hard wired into most living creatures, human beings included, it could be argued that to procreate is one of the reasons were are on this earth, we invest our hopes in future generations, it's simply part of the human condition, even when at times the future seems pretty bleak. That's not to say I don't respect the prerogative of the individual not to have children.

Of course children consume huge amounts of resources and generate waste, although quantify huge, we were all children once and if you buy into that argument, you might as well question does anyone have the right to exist on this earth including ourselves. It's kind of self defeating. All children should unquestionably be properly nourished irrespective of their parents circumstances, to say it might incentivise their parents to get off their backsides and provide if the child goes hungry is inhumane. Some children are born to feckless parents, that's not their fault, no one has any control over the circumstances into how they come into this world. Yes sometimes it's been patently obvious that in certain cases those children should be removed to a stable and safe environment where they could have the potential to flourish. You cannot write children off as potential criminals and drug addicts if they are born to such people, not everyone replicates their beginnings, there have been numerous testaments from those who have risen above those difficulties and gone on to achieve.

Yes you can afford to have as many children as you like if the government is paying you benefits so it seems, more kids equals more money from the taxpayers who have to go to work and have to think twice before deciding they can start a family and pay their bills.