The Budget

All I will say is, at the first opportunity I have to vote Labour out, I will do. Rachel Reeves and much of the rest of them do not have a clue what they are doing. I'm really angry and do not want to write anymore.

GrannyGravy13

Barmeyoldbat

So only scruffy people benefit from the child benefit I am told on Gransnet. Is this everyones opinion

I assume you mean Universal Credit Child Benefit not general Child Benefit

Some of the scruffiest people I know are millionaires 🤷‍♀️

Anyone can have a scruffy day.

Anyone can have a scruffy day
And you don't need young children to have a scruffy day, although it helps.

This will be good for people in Lancaster and Morecambe if what I watched on the news last night about the highest number of children in poverty is true. I look forward to reading that the money will change that.

At the earliest chance I will vote this lot out. Do they care nothing for hardworking people who must wish they could get on benefits as working doesnt pay,

Wyllow3

Mollygo

sundowngirl

She is only try to appease her own back benchers

And looking for support for her party from those who are still having families of 4 or more.

Oh dear! My Ds and DiL clearly sinners. yet he is a maths professor, she is a speech therapist. the children (except for my dear very disabled one) re very likely -show signs already- of being very bright, very responsible members of society, wanting to do good, caring and loving.

How desperately shocking. shouldn't be allowed, clearly. We must need immigrants to fill the jobs they will do, perhaps?

I'd be be surprised if Willows DS and Dil ( employed as maths professor and speech therapist ) qualify for Universal Credit , which is the benefit that's been uncapped (for number of children claimed)

Parents who don't claim UC are not affected.

Parents who recieve Child Benefit won't be affected because there has never been a number-of-children limit on CB.

Allsorts

At the earliest chance I will vote this lot out. Do they care nothing for hardworking people who must wish they could get on benefits as working doesnt pay,

Why?

butterandjam

Wyllow3

Mollygo

sundowngirl

She is only try to appease her own back benchers

And looking for support for her party from those who are still having families of 4 or more.

Oh dear! My Ds and DiL clearly sinners. yet he is a maths professor, she is a speech therapist. the children (except for my dear very disabled one) re very likely -show signs already- of being very bright, very responsible members of society, wanting to do good, caring and loving.

How desperately shocking. shouldn't be allowed, clearly. We must need immigrants to fill the jobs they will do, perhaps?

I'd be be surprised if Willows DS and Dil ( employed as maths professor and speech therapist ) qualify for Universal Credit , which is the benefit that's been uncapped (for number of children claimed)

Parents who don't claim UC are not affected.

Parents who recieve Child Benefit won't be affected because there has never been a number-of-children limit on CB.

That's right.

However, perhaps Maths Professors and Speech Therapists are very poorly paid.

When I read threads like this, I always wonder why people who didn’t vote for the party currently in power say they will vote them out at the next election? It doesn’t figure, because the only people who have the power to vote them out are those who did vote for them last time.

If Labour do lose in 2029, it’s very unlikely that it will be as a consequence of this particular budget in my opinion, it’s not exactly radical but it will benefit poorer families.

I can't complain!

If Labour do lose in 2029, it’s very unlikely that it will be as a consequence of this particular budget in my opinion
No-one will remember this in 2029.

I do wonder why she is discouraging people from saving, particularly for their retirement and in cash ISAs. It seems short-sighted to me.
Surely those who have sufficient funds in retirement will not be claiming any benefits except for their State Pension?

Mollygo

sundowngirl

She is only try to appease her own back benchers

And looking for support for her party from those who are still having families of 4 or more.

Can I just ask people to think a little before making posts that seem to insinuate people with more than two children are somehow deserving of the publics wrath.

I know the situation was different years ago, but even today we don’t always have full control over how many children we end up having. I was a twin, and with my older brother already there, I would have been the third child under the current policy. That makes me think about how arbitrary the two-child cap can feel for families in real life.

I also think it’s worth remembering that children in larger families, especially when only some families are affected by the policy, may experience stigma through no fault of their own.

I'm happy to see more money going to poorer families regardless of whether some might regard them as the "deserving poor" or not. Children need to be fed and clothed and sadly most families now need two wages coming on so every little bit helps.
If we don't downsize, we'll be paying more to the govt in 2028 but I won't begrudge that, the housing market has made us a lot of money over the years, despite the 15% mortgage rate we paid at one time and it's all been tax free!

I do wonder why she is discouraging people from saving, particularly for their retirement and in cash ISAs. It seems short-sighted to me. Surely those who have sufficient funds in retirement will not be claiming any benefits except for their State Pension? [Allira]

It doesn't affect you if invest a proportion in shares, does it Allira?. Taxes are often used as a nudge and that seems to be that this is. It could be suggested that this is where people should be invested for long-term savings. You can do it so you keep the tax free limit. This doesn't seem likely to discourage people from saving.

I didn’t say they are deserving of the public’s wrath. Maybe you using that term explains how you secretly feel DAR.

They aren't deserving of public wrath they are deserving of the experience of an adult in their family going to work, if they don't have that their life chances will generally be poorer no matter what benefits they receive.

Investing in shares is risky.
The £20,000 max limit is now only £12,000 and anything over that has to be in shares, so the ISA isn’t as attractive to most savers now.
If over 65 then the full max limit without shares can still be had.

According to AI: In April 2025, 469,780 Universal Credit households were affected by the two-child limit policy. Out of these, 230,000 (60%) were in-work households.

Mollygo

I didn’t say they are deserving of the public’s wrath. Maybe you using that term explains how you secretly feel DAR.

Mollygo I "feel" the loss of my twin, certainly. I'm not sure what else you could be inferring.

I'm very glad he didn't ever have to think about whether three children was one too many and that they would only been taken into account by a party "looking for support ... from those who are still having families of 4 or more", or think about some of the other comments made on this thread.

Oreo

Investing in shares is risky.
The £20,000 max limit is now only £12,000 and anything over that has to be in shares, so the ISA isn’t as attractive to most savers now.
If over 65 then the full max limit without shares can still be had.

The £12,000 ISA investment will still be the first choice for savers, it just means that anything they want to save above that level needs to be invested in other ways. It’s not so bad, because people who can afford to save over £12,000 a year have plenty of other savings options. The average saver can’t afford to save over £12,000 a year.

My daughter and her husband both have well paid jobs and two children. Saving is just a daydream for them at the moment. I don't know how anyone on an average wage can save much these days.

Oreo

Investing in shares is risky.
The £20,000 max limit is now only £12,000 and anything over that has to be in shares, so the ISA isn’t as attractive to most savers now.
If over 65 then the full max limit without shares can still be had.

Can I just go over this? I'm sorry if I'm repeating some of your points but I can imagine this getting taken up as a "cause" and want to understand it

This change applies only to cash ISAs. It doesn’t scrap the ISA system or reduce the overall ISA allowance. The £20,000 total allowance still stands.

It’s not that “anything over £12,000 must be in shares” rather, to use the full £20,000 allowance a minimum of £8,000 must go into non-cash ISA types (e.g. stocks & shares), but you’re free to split however you like. Also, the change is not immediate, it comes in from April.

For the 2025/26 and 2026/27 tax years, the £20,000 cash ISA allowance remains unchanged (I think).

It doesn't affect you if invest a proportion in shares,

I think that reeves has been seduced by the financial markets to try to force people to buy shares. The impression given is that this is investment in businesses which will promote growth. But it isn't.

There are basically two purposes for share trading. One is the sale of shares to either capitalize a new company, or to raise additional capital for an existing company. A primary market, so to speak.

The other is the secondary market which handles trade in existing shares.

If shares are bought in the ,primary' market the purchase money goes to the company. So, direct investing in a (potentially) productive company is likely to contribute to growth.

In the secondary market the purchase money goes to the previous holder of the shares. The company which originally issued them doesn't see a penny of it. Basically, it is a market for speculators. Shares are either purchased with an eye to selling them at a higher price, or in anticipation of high dividends. This is not productive of growth. It may make some people rich, it pays high salaries to traders in the financial markets, but it does little to help national growth because, as I say with wearying frequency, the rich have a marginal propensity to spend. In other words, very little of this money even reaches the domestic market.

It's also quite risky because, as we should know, share prices can fall as well as rise. So can company dividends.

When I consulted AI on the proportion of 'capitalisation' shares sold/purchased to the proportion of speculative purchases traded it reckoned a rough estimate of about 5% of share trades are for capitalisation, 95% are secondary trades (speculation)

So swapping investment in a cash ISA for 'investment' in shares is much more risky.

Now, if she had offered concessions for purchase of shares in the 'primary' market, it might have been helpful to encourage new business start ups and lead to potentially more growth. But that's not the effect of most investment.

And, of course, a disincentive to new business investment is the fact that a very significant number of consumers are short of spare cash. No use starting a business if no one is going to buy your product..

Casdon

Oreo

Investing in shares is risky.
The £20,000 max limit is now only £12,000 and anything over that has to be in shares, so the ISA isn’t as attractive to most savers now.
If over 65 then the full max limit without shares can still be had.

The £12,000 ISA investment will still be the first choice for savers, it just means that anything they want to save above that level needs to be invested in other ways. It’s not so bad, because people who can afford to save over £12,000 a year have plenty of other savings options. The average saver can’t afford to save over £12,000 a year.

What other tax free ways can they save that isn’t stocks or shares tho?

The choice of what to do with their money has always been with the saver though MaizieD, the only thing that has changed is that you can invest £8000 less of savings into a cash ISA. It’s not a big deal, because people who invest over the £12000 cash ISA limit can afford to make a different choice, whether it’s a S&S ISA or whatever else they want.

Premium Bonds Oreo.

Lower rate tax payers can earn £1000pa in other savings accounts without paying tax on it. (Higher rates can earn £500).
Based on an interest rate of 3.5% - if my maths are correct, that someone on the lower tax rate could have an additional £35,500.00 saved elsewhere. Thats a fair sum to have, in addition to ISA interest?