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Post by Dan Dare on Jul 11, 2023 7:25:23 GMT
Labour leadership is being urged by campaigners to commit to abolishing the two-child cap on benefits entitlements if it gets into power. A debate on the topic will be introduced in the Commons today by Kim Johnson, widely celebrated as Liverpool's first black MP.
Readers will recall the howls of outrage from liberals of every political persuasion when the measure was introduced in 2017, the recurring complaint being that the legislation would disproportionately affect ethnic and religious minorities, who tend to have larger families than the indigenous population.
And so it has come to pass. The constituencies with the highest proportion of affected children are all well above average in terms of their ethnic or religious minority. The highest are in London, Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham, where Hodge Hill was identified as the parliamentary constituency with the highest proportion of Muslims in the recent census (62.4%).
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Post by jonksy on Jul 11, 2023 7:58:55 GMT
Labour leadership is being urged by campaigners to commit to abolishing the two-child cap on benefits entitlements if it gets into power. A debate on the topic will be introduced in the Commons today by Kim Johnson, widely celebrated as Liverpool's first black MP.
Readers will recall the howls of outrage from liberals of every political persuasion when the measure was introduced in 2017, the recurring complaint being that the legislation would disproportionately affect ethnic and religious minorities, who tend to have larger families than the indigenous population.
And so it has come to pass. The constituencies with the highest proportion of affected children are all well above average in terms of their ethnic or religious minority. The highest are in London, Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham, where Hodge Hill was identified as the parliamentary constituency with the highest proportion of Muslims in the recent census (62.4%).
Well that will give some of our young girl school kids another career choice. |
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Post by sheepy on Jul 11, 2023 8:03:34 GMT
Labour leadership is being urged by campaigners to commit to abolishing the two-child cap on benefits entitlements if it gets into power. A debate on the topic will be introduced in the Commons today by Kim Johnson, widely celebrated as Liverpool's first black MP.
Readers will recall the howls of outrage from liberals of every political persuasion when the measure was introduced in 2017, the recurring complaint being that the legislation would disproportionately affect ethnic and religious minorities, who tend to have larger families than the indigenous population.
And so it has come to pass. The constituencies with the highest proportion of affected children are all well above average in terms of their ethnic or religious minority. The highest are in London, Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham, where Hodge Hill was identified as the parliamentary constituency with the highest proportion of Muslims in the recent census (62.4%).
Well that will give some of our young girl school kids another career choice. I get the feeling things run a bit deeper than that Jonsky, like cultural differences. |
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Post by dappy on Jul 11, 2023 8:14:46 GMT
Ignoring Dan's obsession with race for a moment, child benefit in the UK is a mess.
Contrary to perception, there is no two child limit on basic child benefit - anyone gets £24 per week for first child and £15.90 for each subsequent child but if one family member earns over £50k complicated exemptions apply.
Two child limits apply to the very poorest (often single parent) families on enhanced child related benefits (often via universal credit).
It seems we have got mixed up here. Surely the point of child benefits is to ensure that the poorest children get help from the state to try to ensure they have a reasonable start to life. Yet we happily pay benefits to families earning a combined income of up to £99000 and impose limits on poorest families.
Seems a little bit mixed up to me.
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Post by jonksy on Jul 11, 2023 8:20:22 GMT
Ignoring Dan's obsession with race for a moment, child benefit in the UK is a mess. Contrary to perception, there is no two child limit on basic child benefit - anyone gets £24 per week for first child and £15.90 for each subsequent child but if one family member earns over £50k complicated exemptions apply. Two child limits apply to the very poorest (often single parent) families on enhanced child related benefits (often via universal credit). It seems we have got mixed up here. Surely the point of child benefits is to ensure that the poorest children get help from the state to try to ensure they have a reasonable start to life. Yet we happily pay benefits to families earning a combined income of up to £99000 and impose limits on poorest families. Seems a little bit mixed up to me. A peice of paper with PTO on both sides would mix you up dippy. |
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Post by Dan Dare on Jul 11, 2023 8:51:43 GMT
As I understand the underlying reason for the two-child cap was to encourage families existing solely or largely on state benefits to consider the financial consequences of having a third or more children, just as parents who support their families through working have to do.
It may have been a pipedream to imagine that families in cultural, racial or religious communities where raising large families on benefits is normative behaviour would be motivated to join the labour force but there is little doubt it was correct to try it.
According to child poverty activists, the net result has been to increase the incidence of child poverty rather than employment amongst adults so perhaps something yet more draconian is necessary to produce the desired effect. School fees for the third and subsequent children, no FSM etc for example?
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Post by dappy on Jul 11, 2023 10:00:22 GMT
Again ignoring your desire to bring everything back to race, Dan, I think the motivation probably was as you describe - to try to deter parents (often poorer often single parent) from having more children. That might be a laudable aim but frankly benefits is unlikely to achieve that aim. The cost of the policy is penalising children who have done nothing wrong and forcing them into further poverty further limiting their life chances all for a hypothetical benefit.
Its obviously a matter of opinion whether this is a sensible or counter-productive policy. Seems to me it is the latter.
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Post by Dan Dare on Jul 11, 2023 10:15:14 GMT
Surely it isn't public policy which is penalising 'surplus' children but rather feckless parents and social mores which encourage bringing children into the world who their parents can't provide for.
Perhaps you favour a regime in which people can have as many children as they wish and if they are unable to care for them the state will take up the slack?
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Post by dappy on Jul 11, 2023 13:40:09 GMT
It depends Dan on whether your emphasis is on punishing the parents and if the innocent child suffers, who cares OR on protecting the interests of the innocent child and if in so doing that prevents you from punishing the parent, so be it.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 11, 2023 19:24:58 GMT
Anything that helps families on low incomes has got to be a good thing, and I cannot be arsed to even answer the usual racists who always link everything to either coloured people, immigrants or Muslims.
I couldnt give a shit what ethnic background or race people are, if it helps struggling parents with children, then its to be welcomed.
HOWEVER, I think that - IF - Keir Starmer does become the Prime Minister, things will have to be priorotised according to need and resources. I personaly dont think this would be top of the agenda.
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Post by Dan Dare on Jul 11, 2023 20:45:38 GMT
It depends Dan on whether your emphasis is on punishing the parents and if the innocent child suffers, who cares OR on protecting the interests of the innocent child and if in so doing that prevents you from punishing the parent, so be it. Sorry dappy this is a bit too difficult to unravel assuming you are actually trying to respond to my question as opposed to going for a canter on one of your favourite hobby-horses.
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Post by dappy on Jul 11, 2023 22:50:42 GMT
Not hard to understand surely Dan. Let me try again.
We have three parties here
1) the state
2) the parent (s) - who have choices
3) the child - who cannot choose
In essence the state has two choices
1) incentivise financially the parent not to have more than two children and if she does to punish her for so doing. The effect of so doing is that the innocent child is also punished
Or
2) recognise that the child is entirely innocent in this matter and decide to fund the child to give him/her a reasonable chance in life. The effect of this is that you can’t punish the parent for having more kids than they can afford.
Which of those two choices you prioritise is the crux of the issue here.
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Post by johnofgwent on Jul 12, 2023 10:25:57 GMT
Ignoring Dan's obsession with race for a moment, child benefit in the UK is a mess. Contrary to perception, there is no two child limit on basic child benefit - anyone gets £24 per week for first child and £15.90 for each subsequent child but if one family member earns over £50k complicated exemptions apply. Two child limits apply to the very poorest (often single parent) families on enhanced child related benefits (often via universal credit). It seems we have got mixed up here. Surely the point of child benefits is to ensure that the poorest children get help from the state to try to ensure they have a reasonable start to life. Yet we happily pay benefits to families earning a combined income of up to £99000 and impose limits on poorest families. Seems a little bit mixed up to me. Child Benefit of course arose from Family Allowance and the Married Man’s Tax Allowance the idea being we wanted to encourage our own to have children and try to help the sole breadwinner have extra funds in their taxed wallets to meet tge bills Steadily eroded by politicians with very different agendas |
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Post by Fairsociety on Jul 12, 2023 10:32:47 GMT
Labour leadership is being urged by campaigners to commit to abolishing the two-child cap on benefits entitlements if it gets into power. A debate on the topic will be introduced in the Commons today by Kim Johnson, widely celebrated as Liverpool's first black MP.
Readers will recall the howls of outrage from liberals of every political persuasion when the measure was introduced in 2017, the recurring complaint being that the legislation would disproportionately affect ethnic and religious minorities, who tend to have larger families than the indigenous population.
And so it has come to pass. The constituencies with the highest proportion of affected children are all well above average in terms of their ethnic or religious minority. The highest are in London, Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham, where Hodge Hill was identified as the parliamentary constituency with the highest proportion of Muslims in the recent census (62.4%).
Well that will give some of our young girl school kids another career choice. probably Rayners idea. |
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Post by patman post on Jul 12, 2023 11:19:57 GMT
Labour leaders are always being urged to spend more once they get into power. Luckily, the current Labour leadership is refusing to make commitments for extra spending until it is able to see the complete country books.
There’s no doubt child allowances and all benefits system need revising, but it’ll probably only get tackled piecemeal — if at all…
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