The two child limit for benefits

Wheniwasyourage

Nobody answered my question about whether or not the taxpayer should support pensioners.

I will answer. Yes, I believe that pensioners should be supported. As should children and the sick/disabled - in fact anyone who is unable to work should be supported by those who can. But in return for that support, we should all contribute to the collective purse when we are able to do so, or expect to support themselves and still make a contribution. I don't think that some (invariably the worst off) should work to support those who don't want to for whatever reason. From each according to ability and to each according to need.

Pensioners who have worked should get more than those who haven't, IMO (with protections for those who have been unable to for various reasons), but nobody should fall below a decent standard of living - there is no need in a First World country for anyone to have to do that. I believe in reward for contributions rather than penalties for having worked, which is what happens when 'ordinary people' are subject to means tests, but wouldn't want to achieve that by making anyone suffer.

Casdon

I think he’s very wise not to make specific financial commitments when there’s still 18 months to go until the election. He’s got to be circumspect, because if he isn’t his plans will be pulled apart by the Tories however sensible they are. He’s playing the long game.

That seems like logical thinking to me Casdon. Alongside keeping the country running and laying the start for their 5 Missions, they will have to have a drains up on the finances and find out just where the money's gone/going - and if they can get any of it back.

GrannyGravy13

Not all families with two children get Family Allowance there is also an upper earnings cap.

As there should be, in my opinion.

We chose to have 4 children. What we didn't do was choose for taxpayers to support our children. I've always been sahm - I didn't expect taxpayers to support me in staying home, we did for ourselves. I consider my "pay" to be not paying childcare and doing husband's business books myself (not for pay).

Are you saying that you didn't claim Family Allowance Norah?

I thinks it’s wrong and harming those unable to help themselves. The children. Family circumstances can change on a dime - and rise kids don’t deserve to be treated like accidents or mistakes

There are some unbelievably callous comments here. Children are a gift to us and I can’t believe a civilised country could limit family allowance to just 2 children. Please tell me it isn’t so.

Do we remember Thatcher the Milk Snatcher when she stopped free school milk for all but the youngest pupils? A name that stuck for years?

Well, I'm seeing Keir Starmer already being designated 'Sir Starver' and I think that one will stick, too. His insistence on keeping the 2 child limit is not only callous but also utterly tin eared.

Every political party professes to want to improve life for families, but when it comes to it they are more interested in the economy.
Sir Kid Starver.

There are some silly comments on this thread. This policy has been the case for six years. Labour won’t be in government for 18 months. We don’t yet know what the UK’s economic position will be then, but it’s highly unlikely to be much better than it is now. We don’t know if he has in mind an alternative means tested way of providing additional support to the poorest families. Why would he commit himself now to changing one thing out of a catalogue of thousands that need doing prior to the launch of the election campaign - unless he had half a brain?
If ever there was a storm in a mythical teacup this is it.

Well, I'm seeing Keir Starmer already being designated 'Sir Starver' and I think that one will stick, too. Sir Kid Starver.

Absolutely pathetic the depths some people will sink to. Is name calling all you have left?

There are quite a few exemptions from this benefit cap, especially if anyone in the home is getting DLA/PIP etc.

www.gov.uk/benefit-cap/when-youre-not-affected

I don't see how any government can expect economic growth and development without prioritising the support offered to families who really need it. We all know there's so little money to go around, but if there is any possibility of support being means tested then Starmer needs to say it. We don't know, but does he even know what he will do?

I've been reading and thinking about the comments on this thread and deliberately not commenting because I have mixed feelings about the matter.

But a thought that occurs to me when this topic comes up is that in our very unequal society, there are always going to be those who can't really afford one child, let alone two or more. However much anyone tries to convince me that we all have the same advantages and opportunities in life, I don't believe it's true - and the reason I say this is because sheer luck gave me an advantage as a child from a (what was considered then) lower working-class background. Without that bit of luck in my educational life, I doubt I would be in the comfortable position I am today, financially.

We rely on an 'underclass' of low-paid workers doing menial jobs that keep society ticking-over and I don't think that has ever changed or is likely to change much. So when we talk about 'not having children if you can't afford them', we're basically talking about the under-privileged - but they, like anyone else, also want to marry (or not) and have children. So I think, ultimately, we're in danger of suggesting that only the well-off should retain that privilege.

OTOH, I can't fathom why anyone struggling to make a living would entertain the thought of adding to that strain by having a child or children they simply cannot afford.

So this policy is clearly aimed at one demographic. It won't affect those, like Boris Johnson, who possibly now has sufficient offspring to create a complete classroom of his own lineage.

Another thought I had is that, if people actually sat down with a spread-sheet and worked out the cost of raising a child over a period of at least 18 years - from a purely practical point of view, how many would decide that it was an expense they just couldn't afford? Even before you factor in future world or national economic uncertainty and the unpredictability of life itself?

And when we complain about 'our' tax money being spent on raising other people's children who clearly shouldn't have had them because they couldn't afford them, directly or indirectly those children will in future be paying the pensions of the generation above them.

This isn't just an issue about economics or fiscal responsibility. I think it's more complex and involves the notion of whether or not we want a more equitable and fair society - and if we do, how we go about creating it. At the moment I don't believe this current government care one jot about such matters (and this is not an attack on Conservative ideology intrinsically), it's every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. And the 'hindmost' will, inevitably, be blamed for being 'feckless' - but how many are, as opposed to simply being unlucky and not being able to do much about it... except to stop having children, obviously.

Beetlejuice

^Well, I'm seeing Keir Starmer already being designated 'Sir Starver' and I think that one will stick, too.^ Sir Kid Starver.

Absolutely pathetic the depths some people will sink to. Is name calling all you have left?

For your information, I'm not name calling here, just correcting the Sir Starver label to incorporate the Kid aspect we are discussing.

Benefits come & go and it’s just luck whether you get them. My (2) children missed out on Child Trust Funds and I missed out on tax free child care. But we did get child benefit for almost all of the time until it became income-dependent. I doubt the government is looking at child benefit to encourage or discourage people to have children - at this stage it’s more about affordability of the benefit.

Not that this answers the question, but IMO there is a significant difference between a) a change in circumstances, which means that parents who could formerly afford to support the children they have, and could reasonably expect to be able to do so in the future, no longer can, because of e.g. serious illness or life-changing injuries.

and

b) those who go on having more children when they knew perfectly well that they were totally dependent on benefits even for the first.

A woman who regularly visited my former workplace and had one small child, went on to have triplets - entirely naturally. Very unusual, I know, but I would hope that there’s a CB rule exemption in such cases.

Good post Dickens from all angles.

Norah

Freya5 From family in Germany, 250 euros per month.

The same amount is paid to everyone, regardless of the parents' income. As of 2023, the amount is fixed at 250 euros per month per child, no matter how many children you have.

Interesting. I wonder if such has been considered here?

I think they would,all parties, throw their hands up in shock horror. To be fair the Germans pay more tax, 35% I believe, for basic. Would anyone here want to pay that?

Last week there was a single mother on Facebook complaining she could not afford to send her son on a school trip as she had 4 other children. Not surprisingly she wasn't getting much sympathy.

Freya5

Norah

Freya5 From family in Germany, 250 euros per month.

The same amount is paid to everyone, regardless of the parents' income. As of 2023, the amount is fixed at 250 euros per month per child, no matter how many children you have.

Interesting. I wonder if such has been considered here?

I think they would,all parties, throw their hands up in shock horror. To be fair the Germans pay more tax, 35% I believe, for basic. Would anyone here want to pay that?

Well, I wouldn't...I feel like I'm getting taxed to death now.🥴

Joseann

Beetlejuice

Well, I'm seeing Keir Starmer already being designated 'Sir Starver' and I think that one will stick, too. Sir Kid Starver.

Absolutely pathetic the depths some people will sink to. Is name calling all you have left?

For your information, I'm not name calling here, just correcting the Sir Starver label to incorporate the Kid aspect we are discussing.

Can I ask what you’re calling Rishi Sunak Joseann? I hope you have an apt name for him as this is a Tory policy. We don’t yet know what Labour are going to do to support families with children, but we do know exactly what the Tories are doing now.

Aren't there 2 separate questions here.

Do tax payers subsidise the 3rd or more children? And secondly how many children should parents have.

In this overpopulated, overheated and under resourced world surely we should only reproduce our self. So one child per person. Two per couple. So hopefully the aim should be 2 well fed well housed well educated and healthy children for all families.

Any saving of family allowances should go to free school meals for all children, to benefit all children and ensure the next generation are healthy enough to support the generation above pensions welfare etc.
And the population should be encouraged to think of the good of future generations. Not "forced"but encouraged. What our generation did or didnt do, was paid or not paid is irrelevant. Fifty years ago I don't think most of us could have foreseen what the next 50 years will bring.

Dickens is, as ever, the voice of reason. Nationally, we are not reproducing ourselves so there is little need for the rhetoric about population growth here. No one, I guess, is supportive of the " single non working parent of eight children " scenario, but children are our future. We need them to pay taxes to support our services, to become police officers and medics and bus drivers- jobs we won't be able to rely on robots or AI to undertake. So, it's a dilemma and entrenched views won't help.

I would not like to live in a world/country where only the wealthy can have a much loved/wanted child.

Neither would I like to be dictated to by Government on how many children I could have. Obviously I am past natural childbearing age, but something so personal should be a private decision not one Governed by Politicians.

Daisyannreturns there is a video on iplayer of his interview on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, in which he states his intention to keep the 2 child limit.