Gov.uk Petition to retain 2-child benefit

I would like a much closer examination of the statistics on which the figures for child poverty are based, and of the people who provide the evidence . The reports I have read provide endless lists of percentages and projections but no indication from whence these figures come.

This latest rise in child benefit seems to me a cynical exploitation of some genuine need and a great deal of entitled demand from the workshy, in an attempt to shore up the Labour vote at the expense of thrifty, hard working tax payers who live by their own efforts and hard work.

No expression of gratitude from the mother of three in South Shields who said the free school meals , breakfast clubs and lifting of the cap 'didn't go far enough.' Yes, she should be grateful.

First, define "poverty".
Second, if you can't afford to provide for children, then don't have them.
Third, if you are able to work, but choose not to, you shouldn't be entitled to benefits.
Typical example - mother of five (yes, five!!) on TV the other day, bemoaning the fact that she could only just about afford food and heating, but would like extra money to be able to treat her kids to excursions and "days out".
Would someone please tell her (because the reporter didn't) that her "benefits" come from the purse of those hardworking, tax-paying citizens, and are in place to provide "essentials" for those who need it, not for "extras" and "luxuries".
When are we going to wake up?
And before I'm shouted down, I'm absolutely committed to the state providing for those who genuinely cannot work because of disability. BUT ..... if you CAN work, then bloody well do so and pay for your own kids, like the rest of us.

👏👏 Well said Opal!

Agree Opal.

Two neighbours, one hard working with a wife and two children, on minimum wage. The other, jobless grifters, 5 children, gets £18, 000 pa more. The feckless will have more feral children now that the cash incentive has come back

I just don't understand why the government would pay for people having these extra children (ie more than 2) when the rest of us haven't had the slightest say about that and our country is very overpopulated and the world is overpopulated.

Guess that's a cue for someone to come in and say "But there's plenty of land to build on - we've still got space at the North Pole" and totally ignore the fact we need countryside, room to move generally, etc.

The government gave enough warning last time - ie when they cut it to 2 children limit before - the necessary 9 months and an extra month for leeway (ie that would have been in case of a pregnancy extending a little beyond that 9 months).

I do think this move was made - at the expense of the rest of us - to placate a certain "me first" group.

karmalady

Two neighbours, one hard working with a wife and two children, on minimum wage. The other, jobless grifters, 5 children, gets £18, 000 pa more. The feckless will have more feral children now that the cash incentive has come back

How do you live with yourself really?

Feral?

It’s done now, so many children with working parents will be lifted out of poverty. That has to be a Good Thing, however much we all worry about it adding to a culture where working doesn’t reward financially in the way not working does.

My big disappointment was the shambolic approach to much needed review of pip/motability etc. it needs reviewing, as does the number of families needing benefits on top of wages

It’s done for now but could well be revoked by the next government in power, and it should be.

On TV, one family being asked about the removal of the 2 cap were very pleased because their £1,900 per month benefits (both unemployed, 5 children) would give them an extra £900 a month. There was no reason given for neither of them working but what incentive is there for anyone to find a job when £2,800 lands in your outstretched hand every 4 weeks? I was brought up to only have my children if my husband and I could afford them.

My friend's son and his wife have three small children. Neither of them works. Their council house is decked from top to bottom with the best of everything. They are always swanning off to some expensive show or short break. . The government is giving far too much away.

So many posters on these threads really don't care about children. I don’t understand this wish to keep children in poverty if they are born to the "wrong kind of parents ". I honestly can't get my head around this sort of attitude.

The point is that - whatever type of person the parent/s is/are they are choosing to have their children at our expense. I know...I know...."But my children will be looking after you in your dotage etc etc etc". Errrm....children who have been brought up to be responsible people that have jobs if they can manage it will be helping other people in their dotage...but it will probably have been more responsible type people that had them in the first place.

No-one could ever accuse my father of being anything other than a man who genuinely wanted children - but he was not at all happy with his wife/my mother taking standard child benefit even and he didn't want her to. As he put it - "They're my children - so they're my responsibility - as I'm the one that had them".

Ilovecheese

So many posters on these threads really don't care about children. I don’t understand this wish to keep children in poverty if they are born to the "wrong kind of parents ". I honestly can't get my head around this sort of attitude.

Neither can I. Ilovecheese.

And I don't understand your wish to make hard working people continue to provide for others who are 1. perfectly capable of working but choose not to, and 2. choose to increase the size of their family when they simply cannot afford more children.
The right to have children goes hand in hand with the responsibility to provide for them. No ifs, no buts.

I agree in principle it should be two children cap, however I am glad it is lifted, the children did not asked to be born, and the thought of them going hungry or cold because of bad parental choices does not sit well with me.
I can see why hard working people get annoyed though.

I’m the youngest of 5 children. I had 2 hard working parents. I’m disabled, I’ve worked hard from the time I left full time education until I retired. I still pay tax.
These things are not mutually exclusive. There are some mean and judgmental comments in this thread.

Opal

And I don't understand your wish to make hard working people continue to provide for others who are 1. perfectly capable of working but choose not to, and 2. choose to increase the size of their family when they simply cannot afford more children.
The right to have children goes hand in hand with the responsibility to provide for them. No ifs, no buts.

Well said Opal!!

karmalady

Two neighbours, one hard working with a wife and two children, on minimum wage. The other, jobless grifters, 5 children, gets £18, 000 pa more. The feckless will have more feral children now that the cash incentive has come back

Both neighbours have recounted the details of their incomes to you, have they? Really?

Ilovecheese

So many posters on these threads really don't care about children. I don’t understand this wish to keep children in poverty if they are born to the "wrong kind of parents ". I honestly can't get my head around this sort of attitude.

Agreed!

Some very mean spirited folk around.

Ilovecheese
I don’t think your generalisation is particularly accurate.
Posters do care about children. They don’t want them living in poverty.

They do understand that the 2child cap is inappropriate when unforeseen events change circumstances.

What do you mean by the wrong sort of parents?
Would you like to give your definition?

Who doesn’t care about children?

Was the member of my family who suffers from a condition which means she has never looked for work, and whose husband has a low paid job right to have more than 2 children?

Is it fair that they get more in benefits than another member, with 2 children, who had a well paid job which she lost through serious illness and now works at 2 basic rate jobs rather than not work?

I can’t speak for other posters but I’m not convinced that parents who have multiple children and expect others to fund them
really care

Do you consider parents who already struggle with two children care about children when they go ahead and have more?

And I don't understand your wish to make hard working people continue to provide for others who are 1. perfectly capable of working but choose not to

'Working people' don't provide anything because taxes don't fund state spending

But until more people understand this we will continue to have this barrage of nastiness towards the victims of our economic system.

Of course we care about children but I don't believe that all these children in poverty will necessarily feel the benefit of the removal of the cap. Maybe some of these' wrong kind of parents' will use it to fund their own lifestyle

I'm an only child and my parents would have loved another, but they couldn't afford it. No child allowance at all was given for the first child then and I also never received anything until my second child was born.

The state (tax payers) should not be funding a lifestyle for those that will not work. Perhaps the two child cap should only be removed for people with both partners in work.

Good to see that the stereotypes are healthy, alive and kicking🙄