The Conservatives introduced a cap on Universal Credit of 2 children for two reasons. The overall benefits bill was rising too fast. The present government agrees and says it wants to cut it. It did not seem fair that parents going to work to pay for their homes and children should delay having another child or limit their family size because they cannot afford another mouth to feed whilst people not working would be paid by the state to have another child.
As Kemi Badenoch made clear in her GB News interview yesterday, she thinks it is wrong to improve the benefits offer to migrants when most in the country and the government say we need to get migration down.
What do you think about scrapping the cap? If you support it how would you pay for it? What impact do you think it will have on migration? Do you think our benefits offer to migrants is too little?
Should a distinction be made between those on UC whilst being in low paid work, and those living entirely on benefits?
May 26, 2025
A benefits cap set at 3 children would be more appropriate as 2 is below the population replacement level. I would pay for it by abolishing PIP and most other disability benefits because people going onto disability benefits is more damaging both in costs and in encouraging people not to seek or do work than is child benefit.
May 26, 2025
Pay for it by scrapping the insanity of net zero which saves £trillions, makes energy much cheaper, industry more competitive, defence possible and also by stopping low skilled immigration and stopping and deterring the boat people. Tax breaks for children is a better way. But if you have a single parent with 4 – 10 children living here legally then what do you do – would you let some children starve? Would they have to rely on charities or begging?
May 26, 2025
Yesterday I circulated an email headed “Scottish growth halved by net zero policy (?)”. I included Richard Tice, who calls it “net stupid zero”, because Reform has a candidate in the June 5 Holyrood by-election. The question mark in the heading is necessary because I cannot prove that the net zero policy is the main cause of low growth since 2008. One more conventional line of thought was highlighted in an article in the FT on Friday:
https://www.ft.com/content/c045713c-ab8c-44df-adb0-c7fffa05cfb9
“UK private sector productivity drops below pre-Covid levels”
We might expect a loss of productivity if a) well developed efficient processes are driven out of the country because they involve release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and we are increasingly left with less efficient but supposedly carbon neutral processes, and b) some businesses are running well below capacity because of the lack of demand for their products consequent on sluggish economic growth.
May 26, 2025
Energy costs at 4circa times what they should be is hugely anti-jobs and anti-growth and as Dearlove says makes defence almost imposible too. Stupid? No totally insane and moronic vandalism!
May 26, 2025
Here’s another FT article, reprinted in the Irish Times, as is often done:
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/2025/05/26/the-uks-trade-performance-remains-dire/
“The UK’s trade performance remains dire”
They are sure that it’s because we’ve left the EU, although there is this puzzle:
“Yet, surprisingly, the performance of UK exports of goods to the EU, which were down 19 per cent over this period, was much the same as that of exports of goods to the rest of the world, which were down by 20 per cent.”
Even so, they think it must be to do with leaving the EU, surely it must:
“One fairly plausible explanation is that supply chains from the EU have been disrupted and that has undermined the competitiveness of UK goods in third markets.”
Here’s a more plausible explanation: we’ve left the EU but we are still following the EU net zero policy, under which exports matter less than saving the planet.
May 26, 2025
@LL; “by stopping low skilled immigration”
But first make sure the (young) indigenous population are prepared to do such low skilled, most likely, dirty jobs, if they do nopt and the government doesn’t want to introduce direction of labour, best we not stop those who are prepared to do such work. There is a real world beyond the simplistic rhetoric…
May 26, 2025
They will do the job if the pay is sufficient and they do not lose too much in taxes and they do not get benefits for long if they refuse more than a few such jobs. Also travel to and from work should be tax deductable! Often a minimum wage jobs with and expensive time consuming commutes are not worthwile compaired to benefits and having the extra time to shop efficiently or help you mate fix his car with a bit of “bartering”!
May 26, 2025
@LL; It is not a matter of how much someone is paid. You can not make people do work they do not wish to do, they will either not turn up after lunch, or the second day, and even if they are frogmarched to a place of work they will simply do as they please once there; nor would any employer want such people on site, the risks would be to high, more so if there is any mechanization – all to easy to literally throw a spanner or some such into the works!
The DWP can already remove or restrict benefits if a claimant refuses to take suitable work without good reason.
As for your last comment, about bartering, indeed, not everyone subscribed to your obsession with money and wealth, some prefer to be broke but happy, and that might explain the rise in the UK’s “Mental Health crisis”, the pandemic likely opened a few eyes to an alternate life!
May 26, 2025
Completely agree LL
May 26, 2025
Having more than 2 children (we had twins!) doesn’t just happen, family planning and confidence in being able to raise them in a standard the society expects is a fair requirement. Why should the tax paying sector of the population support the unrealistic neglect shown in producing too many children? Not just a cost the parents must bear, but on NHS, schooling and all the other issue of jobs, housing et al the society has to accomodate.
May 26, 2025
Geoffrey, key point is to try and row back on benefits overall.
If you offer something for free to someone they will take it – and in time they will rely on it. Child benefit, free meals, winter fuel allowance, migrant hotels…
Our State offers too much to too many, which is why we have 9m /20% of the working age population not employed and that trend rising. The Country cannot sustain this, yet every attempt to reduce State handouts is met with horror.
May 26, 2025
I agree. People who moan that childrens benefits are too low, should trying growing up like I did, in a time in a time when there was no Child Benefit, and when it did come in, it was for the second child. There are people on the TV News that have 3 or more children, and moan that the benefits they get, are ‘not enough’. Where do they think the money comes from??
I also think that migrants who arrive here illegally should not get any benefits, as they have not paid in. The taxpayer, who has no say in this, is being squeezed to the limit, and is howled down if they protest.
May 26, 2025
@PeteB +1 – exactly!
May 26, 2025
Not just cut down on benefits but on the size of the state sector which is hugely unproductive and much of what they spend money actually on does net harm. The lock downs, the dangerous net harm Covid Vaccines (see the abundant stats of Cardio Vascular issues and redueced fertility etc,), net zero, public transport subsidies, road blocking, planning blocking, OTT building, employment, health and safely and other regs.
May 26, 2025
@Geoffrey Berg; A somewhat callous way of paying for other peoples children, disadvantage the disabled. 🙁
In any case your rational (population replacement level) is way off the mark, the problem is not two child families but couples of reproductive age who refuse to do what nature intended and thus live in zero child families *out of choice*. The question is how to tilt social norms back to were they need to be, without appearing ‘sexists’. Or perhaps it is simply time to start calling a rock, a rock, again?
May 26, 2025
Why should couples who decide (or cannot afford) to have children be looked down upon in your usual holier than though manner? Why should they contribute to the ponzi scheme which is what it is. You cannot just keep having more and more people in the world, which is why we have so much trouble already. The trouble is we have too many sucking on the public teat and I do not believe that the thick end of 10 million are sick or disabled. The real ones need looking after, no doubt, but it seems to have become a fashion since covid, unprovable like the ‘bad back’ syndrome of old. We just have over population already and should not be in this position.
May 26, 2025
@graham1946; No more holier than though than those looking at other targets, such as disability benefits. I agree that for some it has become to easy to claim a disability but that feeds into the question I posed about social norms.
“You cannot just keep having more and more people in the world”
But we are not talking about world population, we are talking about UK population and thus size of our economy, yet many the same people who subscribe to such a view as yours are also those who bleat about inward migration. The UK population is shrinking and that shrinkage will get faster and deeper as the baby boomer generation die.
“The trouble is we have too many sucking on the public teat ”
And that also includes those who minimize their tax burdens whilst expecting the same level of public services they refuse to help fund, ho-hum…
May 27, 2025
Those who ‘minimize their tax burden’ probably pay in more then you or I do and if it is wrong then why do the govt allow it? The population is not shrinking, just those who are paying in properly.
May 27, 2025
@graham1946; An argument for a flat tax system?
Of course those who earn more, have greater wealth, pay pound-for-pound more taxes, that’s a given when using percentages to calculate the amount due. But my point was about those who avoid paying what would otherwise be due, never mind those who evade their taxes!
The *working age* population is shrinking, unless the baby boomer generation have found eternal youth, they are all within the sphere of retirement now or within a few years, across Europe around 18% will have left behind their working life by 2031 (using the UK retirement age of 67), employers need to fill that void as it happens, not in 10 to 23 years time.
May 26, 2025
Oh dear jerry, one of my daughters chose not to have children, they adore being a much loved aunt/uncle to late teenage nephews/niece.
I don’t think I’ll share your ‘my opinion is all that counts’ with them!
May 26, 2025
Empathy isn’t Jerry’s strongest suit MT
May 26, 2025
I’m sad that my post pointing out a certain demographic would be the main beneficiaries of lifting the cap and that only children born in the UK whose parents are up to date on NI contributions should receive it.
Trump is correct about free speech ans self censorship but this is down to uniparty politics.
Reply Your group selection was too narrow to be accurate. Send me some quoted official figure if you have a good factual point to make.
May 26, 2025
Certainly there are differences but even new arrivals tend to reduce and adjust slowly toward the lower UK fertility rates. The tax system discourages babies unless you are on benefits or very rich. Likely to need two incomes to pay the rent or mortgage and keep the house warm in the UK.
May 26, 2025
‘The tax system discourages babies’ but the benefits system does not when single late teens/young 20s females have a child or two and get set up with housing and acceptable living standards until the children leave education!
May 26, 2025
”as 2 is below the population replacement level”
Its not up to governments to social engineer the size of the population ….thats nature & god business, and indeed natural selection (and legal/illegal immigration isn’t natural selection, thats managed poplution growth)
May 26, 2025
I agree with raising the cap (rather than abolishing it). The third child (or, third birth – what if someone has twins?) is a sensible place to put it. To achieve the replacement rate requires a certain number of families to have 3 or more children.
Therefore, having a cap set at a level which is below the replacement rate doesn’t make sense. Having a cap set at that level while also opposing immigration makes even less sense since such an approach reinforces the growing imbalance in the ratio between the working age population and those of retirement age.
However, I can’t agree that abolishing disability benefits is how it should be paid for. People with disabilities face higher day to day costs through no fault of their own. My understanding is that the current benefits system structure (mostly inherited from the previous government) creates financial incentives to be classified in particular ways due to receiving higher payouts.
Removing those incentives (while retaining disability benefits for those who face higher daily living costs due to their disability) is something that should be done. The previous government failed to do that. We will have to see if this one is willing to.
May 26, 2025
Good morning.
There should be no benefits at all for non-UK citizens – Ever !!
As for UK citizens on benefits there needs to be major reform. I propose that for the first 1-2 Years benefits should come from the State purse as it currently does. After that, then any benefits must come from the Local Council. I suggest this as, it is high time that people realise the the cost that their next door neighbour(s) is costing.
Shame can be a very powerful weapon against those who choose to live off the sweat of others.
May 26, 2025
@Mark B; “There should be no benefits at all for non-UK citizens – Ever !!”
In that case non-UK citizens should not be subjected to any UK taxes – ever, no income tax, no NI, no VAT, no VED, no Fuel duties, nothing. If they pay into the Exchequer in any way whilst ‘resident’ here in the UK they should have have the same rights as UK citizens.
As for local vs. national taxation, perhaps people do need to know what their next door neighbor(s) are costing them, both how much they take out but also how little some put in to the pot, comparative to their income/means. Be careful of what you wish for, swords tends to be double edged…
May 26, 2025
Classic whataboutery Jerry.
May 26, 2025
exactly …..wants cakes and expects to eat.
May 26, 2025
@NS; Haha, you accuse me of Whataboutism, by committing classic whataboutery yourself!
Pointing out the fables of an argument, or pointing out unmentioned truths is not Whataboutism, attacking someone by using a counter-accusation instead of a defense against the original accusations is.
May 26, 2025
What a strange post Jerry
Does anyone, other than you, have any idea what on Earth you mean?
May 26, 2025
@Sam; Yes, anyone who cares to check the definition of Whataboutism!
May 26, 2025
Did you write it Jerry?
May 27, 2025
That’s you that is!
May 27, 2025
@NS; By your logic anyone not accepting someone else’s argument, but instead lays out their alternate opinions/thoughts, is commiting an act of whataboutery, not debate!
May 26, 2025
Mark B ….you mean like the rest of the world ….try getting benefits in USA, MidEast, Asia, Africa, Russia, South America etc etc
May 26, 2025
Non-UK citizens here on a visa have, as a condition of their visa “no recourse to public funds” and have a pay an annual NHS surcharge on top of paying the same taxes the rest of us pay.
May 26, 2025
That doesn’t include foreign students or overstayers
May 26, 2025
We should keep the cap. Opening it up will just encourage the feckless to have more children they cannot afford nor know how to bring up
May 26, 2025
Agree ….people need to take their own responsibilty without relying upon the state
May 26, 2025
…and why are we still paying out ‘in-work universal credits/benefits’
”’for couples or lone parents this is £1,835.00 a month (£2110.25 in Greater London)”’
Why are we, as taxpayers subsidizing employers
May 26, 2025
Well the employers have little choice as if they chose to pay more they would often either go bust or just get taken over and/or out competed by other companies who pay only the market rate (given the benefits available the market rate is indeed lower).
May 26, 2025
Thats a weak argument
May 26, 2025
I tend to believe in a benefit free society , with the exception of those who really need support through no fault of their own, because I see dependency as a bad thing.
There may be very good reasons why a government wishes to increase the birthrate among indigenous people. The benefit for two children is £43.30 per week. A 2.1 % birthrate maintains polulation levels. If you wish to maintain this level against the accelerating costs of parenting responsibly then increase the weekly rate for two children, but do not lift the cap on numbers, which could encourage those who see giving birth as a way of life, and access to an income stream.
Birthrates among the immigrant population are already way in excess of the rates to maintain a cap on population, check out ONS figures for those who believe it racist to say so. Lifting the cap on birthrate numbers for this benefit only increases the pull factor to get into the UK.
I have always thought that a population of 45 million in the UK is enough in this increasingly automated age to ensure a good quality of life for all. Adding to the numbers to keep the plates spinning is not a longterm solution.
May 26, 2025
I agree AG – it is obvious that automation (of many kinds) is coming – including humanoid robots. The need for low skill/low cost labour will disappear sooner or later. We don’t need to import people who will rapidly become unemployable. We will have enough of our own.
May 26, 2025
Automation has been coming since the 1950’s – a bit like the paperless society which consumes more paper than ever. I remember when I was a boy being told that mechanisation was going to make us all rich and have so much spare time we wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves. It is like the nuclear electricity that was going to be too cheap to meter. This and end of oil is always 50 years away and remains like that.
May 26, 2025
@Agricola – then you have just £176.45 per week for the basic State Pension, but only for those with that have paid NI for 30years. Although the Tories have removed some of its meaning to now only be a State benefit if the State feels inclined. Is near as dammit as to make little difference those that never contribute get paid the same.
May 26, 2025
UK state pension it is 35 years and it is £221 PW is it not?
May 26, 2025
But if you are young do not count on getting it before about age 80! It is 67/68 already,
May 26, 2025
@Lifelogic – that is the new pension, which is only for those retiring since April 2016. Not all the oldies have died out
May 26, 2025
Many females who had children ( a note for jerry) didn’t manage to earn 35 years working pre redundancy/retiring etc.
My wife does not get £221 per week!
May 26, 2025
@MT; But what is/will-be your combined pensions worth, or have you not paid into the State pension scheme?
May 27, 2025
No it isn’t. There are two pensions, the old one which you had to contribute for 44 years to get a lower pension than the newer one where you only have to contribute for 35 years to get a higher pension. Genius or what?
May 26, 2025
Agricola: Must agree with all that. I think in this instance Kemi is correct and Farage is wrong to commit to the scrapping of it. The 2 child cap should be maintained with payment reviews as and when. Help with childcare costs, breakfast clubs and now discussion on assistance with school uniform costs all no doubt welcomed by many.
May 26, 2025
No Farage is right and Kemi is wrong – both politically and in principle. Farage unlike Kemi will scrap net zero which will save £Trillions and cut energy costs hugely too, and will leave the ECHR and stop paying for hotels too. It is aburd that pensioners we cannot keep warm and babies properly fed in a country like the UK. Yet we can pay billions to Mauritious, piss trillions away on Net Zero and the NHS can even fund two sex change operations every day. It is about sensible choices!
May 26, 2025
Last night I watched Gary Lineker present Match of the Day on the BBC for the last time. Lineker is a national treasure, who presented his final show – after 26 years – with his customary panache. Vindictively, the management of the BBC have also cancelled his podcast.
Despite threats from the usual suspects, the BBC played tributes from many other football figures and pundits. Many fans would have been appalled had they not.
The BBC will come to regret dispensing with Lineker’s services. As with Jeremy Clarkson, a competitor will snap him up – probably with a substantial pay rise.
Reply He was massively overpaid at Licence payers expense. Plenty of good better value presenters around.
May 26, 2025
Gary Lineker was an overpaid opinionated presenter. He sits well with the present government with his anti British rants.
May 26, 2025
@Ian; “overpaid opinionated”
As are most current and recent TV presenters (and their producers/directors), whatever the channel, however it is funded, whatever the genre – but that is what viewers now expect, being told what to think, as if putting a question mark after an assertion make it any more a question, or having a carefully selected panel of opinion to tell the viewers what the interviewee ‘really’ meant.
May 26, 2025
yep …wanted to be the top earner for little talents, and push political views to his audience.
(However few BBC ‘ers don’t, given the chance.)
Years overdue termination.
May 26, 2025
He was sacked for sharing an anti-semitic image. Odd you haven’t mentioned that. That will ensure no other broadcaster employs him.
May 26, 2025
I have not bought any Walkers crisps since this overpaid footballer with his politics advertised them and I know others who also dislike him so much that Walkers are out.
May 26, 2025
+1
May 26, 2025
He’s a complete hypocrite. He claimed that a Conservative government was using the language of 1930s Germany and yet when re-posting something vile on the internet he claimed he didn’t realise that it originated in 1930s Germany.
May 26, 2025
Gary Lineker was an exceptional footballer, I particularly enjoyed him playing for England. Some may say he was good football presenter for ‘Match of the Day’ and I wouldn’t argue otherwise.
Unfortunately he is now a Woke, Far-left, Champagne Socialist Millionaire who decided to use the BBC to air his politics. I didn’t want to hear his politics, that was not his job for which he was hansomely paid. He abused his privileged position to criticise people who had no opportunity to respond. He should have stuck to football.
May 26, 2025
Blessed with a long memory – he was abject dire for the whole first year….must have had an important supporter in the wings.
May 26, 2025
He abused his position in the supposedly politically impartial BBC and therefore abused the BBC Poll Tax payers who were forced to fund what amounted to his blatant political campaigning.
I don’t care if some other organisation snaps him up. Based on his politics, it looks like Al Jazeera would be the most likely candidate.
May 26, 2025
Yes Sir John. Good riddance, inflated ego and nisguided belief in his own importance.
May 26, 2025
I am sure there are lots of good presenters out there who are not Hamas supporters.
May 26, 2025
Only Hamas supporters need apply.
Wish I could post the picture taken in Feb 25 of a supermarket in Gaza – fully stocked by Israel (!) – which explains why these people are so well fed in the main – of course they starve the few for photographic imperatives, to fool us all.
May 29, 2025
Built up from pictures taken in 2023 and 2024 (logicallyfacts.com 18/03/2024).
May 26, 2025
I played alot of football in my youth and I found him a very good presenter (on football). His political view are usually rather daft and even unpleasant but rather similar to the BBC line. He was over paid though no shortage or suitable ex-footballers around who could do it well.
May 26, 2025
SG :
I agree with Sir John. The size of Linekar’s salary was obscene both for the job he did and the fact that he worked for a organisation funded by a forced fee and not subject to any effects of competition. Perhaps the TV licence fee funded BBC could be run with some democracy with the licence fee payers acting as shareholders. Presenters could be made subject to the same recall petition as MPs. If 10% of TV licence fee payers sign a petition then it triggers a full TV licence fee payers’ vote.
May 26, 2025
@OR; No one is being forced to pay the TVL fee, watching television is not compulsory, and there are plenty of ways to watch TV without breaking the law.
That said, the TVL fee is grossly excessive now, as is what the BBC is permitted to do, as a Public Service Broadcaster they only need to be the size they were in 1965 plus the News channel (perhaps) [1]. Charge £50 per year TVL fee, close just about everything else down, including the BBC’s websites. The current BBC Director General is wrong, whilst the BBC is funded via a *Television* License fee, whilst the BBC is called the British *Broadcasting* Corporation, the BBC should be broadcast (TV/radio) first, digital last, nor compete with commercial rivals – the BBC should do only what the commercial media companies can not or choose not to do.
[1] give BBC Parliament to the Parliamentary television service to run, return the BBC World Service to the orbit of the FCDO, fund both directly
May 26, 2025
You’ve run this argument for years Jerry.
I appreciate it is your strongly held opinion but I reckon the days of the compulsory BCC licence fee are coming to an end.
Technology is moving ahead faster than you me and the BBC understand.
The younger generations get their chosen pictures from many other avaliable internet providers.
The sad thing is the BBC should gave demanded to be released to compete.
They would have done very well I believe in the current world media market but now I think because they cling to the current funding method their future is bleak.
May 26, 2025
MiB; Yawn. Once again you reply in a hostile way just to rile me. Try actually reading, no sorry, try actually *understanding*, what I say. I agree with you, the current BBC and thus the current TVL fee is unsustainable, but are you really suggesting that even £50pa is objectionable to secure PSB here in the UK, assuming you understands what Public Service Broadcasting is and, more importantly, what it is not. Go check what the BBC actually offered back in 1965, hardly excessive by modern standards.
Yes new technology is moving apace, but broadcasting via UHF, VHF and MW spectrum RF frequencies is a universal means of communications, try getting the internet halfway up a mountain, even with 5G, and how many times do we hear media reports that this or that ISP has had problems. But even so, my comments about Broadcast vs Digital was in connection to the BBC, I made no comment about other commercial or subscription services, want to watch ITV, Netflix, Amazon, Sky via the internet, fine.
May 27, 2025
If my quite polite post is regarded as “hostile” to point you are “riled” by it, then Jerry you need to calm yourself down and remind yourself of your many previous words on the joys of debate.
May 27, 2025
@MiB; It will be noted that you once again played the man, not the ball. Playing the innocent when someone dares to reflect your own one-liners back on you, if you do not want your comments described as “Hostile” then do not call out others that way…
I should also point out neither the commercial nor subscription broadcasters want the BBC to compete “commercially”, they are actually happy with the status quo, there is not enough adverting revenue as it is, and uptake of subscriptions is faltering, given the rise of free-to-view alternatives.
May 27, 2025
Come off it Jerry
That isn’t anything resembling “playing the man”
There was no hostility or agression from me.
Just a post asking for some clarification to the arguments you made.
However there is regular hostility by you, on here to anyone who dares to counter your arguments and it is is something you need to consider and calm down about.
Debate is good…or so you say.
May 28, 2025
@MiB; Nonsense, your original opening gambit was;
“You’ve run this argument for years Jerry.”
Do I complain when you or others restate your arguments. How come you never challenge Lifelogic who restates his/her opinions every day, often multiple times; you only ever pick on me, if that is not playing the man, not the ball, then what is.
Using a browsers ‘Find’ function, doing a word search on “Martin in Bristol”, out of 154 comments you have only replied to me, no one else, I bet if similar was doe on other topics the same will be found, ho-hmm…
“Just a post asking for some clarification”
But no ‘clarification’ was needed, had you actually read the comment, @OR understood and I bet everyone else did! Whatever.
May 28, 2025
The statement…you’ve run this argument for years…is a simple true fact.
There is no emotion nor hostility in those words.
Regarding the majority of my posts being towards you I will say that I fundamentally agree with our hosts daily posts and with almost all the regular posters on this site.
You, however, are what I would call a wind up poster.
Deliberately taking the opposite opinion just for the fun of it.
Often aggressively in my opinion.
But you loudly shout out when someone dares to challenge you.
May 26, 2025
jerry :
I agree that the size of the BBC should be severely reduced together with its licence fee. Perhaps just for news and current affairs like Sky News. If there is to be any entertainment it should be developing new formats, shows and presenters and not paying huge amounts for existing presenters and shows which can be left to the commercial channels. Because of the way the BBC is funded it should be used to broadcast less popular sports for instance.
May 26, 2025
Indeed they BBC always pretend it is the licence payers BBC and is accountable. So lets have it accountable in reality!
May 26, 2025
Why should we pay ANY benefits to migrants? The answer is to restrict child benefit to those who already hold a British Passport. The same goes for all other welfare: British citizens ONLY.
If migrants cannot support themselves and their families without welfare support of any kind, including social housing, then they should not be allowed to come here.
May 26, 2025
+1
Fully agree if your not British then you shouldn’t receive any handouts or a roof over their heads, this country is the soft touch of the world , people are blind if they can’t see what’s happening we are being turned into a third world country, and as for the capping of Universal Credit of 2 children then that should be enough if you have more kids work harder or don’t have anymore or expert the Tax payers of Britain to fund you it’s not Rocket science
May 26, 2025
Absolutely, Donna.
May 26, 2025
@Donna, Mick, Pominoz – while I get and see where you are coming from, anyone working here and contributing should receive similar – maybe scaled on years of contibution.
It gets disjointed when 2TK says those that pay tax to their home country while being employed and living in the UK as such enjoying what the taxpayer has funded should ‘not’ contribute to the UK – That as 2TK calls reciprocal trade?
May 26, 2025
Agree
May 26, 2025
Or stay here. Rupert Lowe is writing that the Government have advised him that over 400,000 are claiming unemployment benefits, not being born here. Time to go home then. The costs for low paid immigrants far outweighs any benefit to English people. That’s before we look at the other major issues like, our culture, housing and health waiting lists. Anti English ECHR, non equality and Human Rights laws to silence and distribute the indigenous population. Reform is very much needed.
May 26, 2025
Sir John,
It’s a real balancing act to get child benefit right.
I must admit that I preferred the old system where in effect, child benefit or family allowance as it was then, was paid via the tax code. There was also a married man’s tax allowance again, paid through the tax code.
I know times change and, in effect, both members of a couple are forced to work but, a similar system could still work today with the couple or working single parent, nominating who gets the higher tax code. It must be cheaper to pay it through the tax system rather than having a separate department paying it each week or month. It would also be easy to pay a different amount for those in work and those out of work. For instance, keep the two child cap for those out of work but no cap on those in work and receiving their child allowance through their tax code.
You could perhaps legitimately argue that the state shouldn’t subsidise people to reproduce and if someone wants kids it is their responsibility to fund them, but of course we need more younger people to keep paying for our pensions. It’s a real dilemma isn’t it?.
May 26, 2025
Ciff, I tend to agree with your suggestion, too much money just being handed out to the feckless, make work pay !.
May 26, 2025
Better off if unemployed?
May 26, 2025
The two cap benefit should be maintained. If you want a larger family, fair enough, but you should be able to support your children yourself.
There should be zero benefits for migrants. If you want to work and be productive, we’ll have you. If you need to sponge off the state from day one, you shouldn’t be here. If you lose your job within three years of arriving, then you should be escorted onto a plane back to your own country. No other country on Earth is as stupidly generous with “benefits” as UK and we can’t afford it.
May 26, 2025
It is interesting that Farage is in favour of lifting the cap. Obviously he hopes that by positioning Reform to the left on economic issues he can win some Labour voters – it is a strategy that has worked for Le Pen amongst others so may be worthwhile. He’d pay for it by scrapping foreign aid and net zero and all its associated costs and subsidies (eg. £20bn on carbon capture) so it is easily affordable in that context.
May 26, 2025
@Roy Grainger – he has misplaced and disjointed thinking on a few similar things. A bit cynical even to say vote for me and your friends, family and everyone else will pay for the things you enjoy. Much harder to explain that the UK, tax, benefits, subsidies, levies etc systems are out of control easy to abuse and expensive to implement that they all need scrapping and be simplified.
Would I vet for Reform, yes, not with expectations of change, but because they are not the other and they need consigning to history
May 26, 2025
@Ian B … correction “Would I vote”
May 26, 2025
@Ian B; “[vote Reform] because they are not the other and they need consigning to history”
Out of the frying pan into the fire then! Reform is as woke as any, just woke in a different way, they have no solutions, yes the problems of today might vanish but in their place would be the problems of the 1950s, or the 1920s, or those of the 1800s.
May 26, 2025
Jerry What a bizarre take on Reform who currently are polling very well with some popular policies which are what a more conservative Conservative Party might have chosen.
Explain how they are woke.
Explain how their current policies would create problems of decades ago.
Looking forward to your analytical reply.
May 26, 2025
@MiB; Any chance you could tell us what *you* think Martin, not what Mr Farage or Tice thinks…
Remember how Corbyn was very popular between 2016 and November 2019? Yet voters tumbled to the fact that the man had no answers, just words with an out of date origin, and an unthinking rabble for grassroots support. Very similar to what is happening with Reform today.
Opinion polls are a measured point-in-time that has already past, whilst local and by-elections are often nothing more than protest votes, neither are GE indicators, at least not this far out from the next one.
May 27, 2025
So no answer to any of the questions I asked from your original post where you make seversl unsupported claims about Reform.
Just diversion and off on a tangent as usual.
May 27, 2025
@MiB; “Just diversion and off on a tangent as usual.”
That’s a bit rich coming from you Martin!
You have still not told me what *you* think, how can I reply to *your* opinions when you have expressed non, thus my reply is to what Farage and Tice thinks, the polling of YouGov etc.
Whatever.
May 27, 2025
Look Jerry, you made a post with many contentious points.
I replied pointing out how I see the situation and asked you to answer a few points.
You say you love debating.
Seems you are a bit sensitive to anyone who dares to challenge your opinions.
May 28, 2025
@MiB;’ No Martin, you simply keep restating what others say, of course Farage and Tice think their policies are ‘popular’. Try giving us your own opinion, and whilst your at it try replying to someone else besides just me, stop being so shallow, yours and Sam’s hame is crystal clear, you wish me gone.
May 28, 2025
I often see weaknesses in the arguments in your posts and so I am stimulated to reply to you.
Your idea of debate is to sometimes argue both sides of a topic within a week or two.
That isn’t debate
PS
I note, as usual, there is still no answers from you to my simple request to the questions I legitimately raised.
You often make contentious claims then run away when challenged.
As in this example.
May 26, 2025
But Mme Le Pen is genuinely left wing: a big stater, big borrower, big spender, in bed with the unions, anti EU, and a protectionist. No pension reform or benefits cut for her. She is a real rival to La France Insoumise.
May 27, 2025
rose, how is she planning on paying for the pension payment increases?
May 27, 2025
Left wing people don’t.
May 26, 2025
Stand by to be drip fed vote winning statements.
May 26, 2025
You provided the answer in your first paragraph. You make your own judgements about the size of family you can afford. My wife and I stopped at two children and I have absolutely no inclination to finance others so that they can have large families.
May 26, 2025
I have always opposed this cap.
Firstly one woman may want more than two children while another woman may choose to remain childless, but the childless woman cannot transfer her entitlement to the woman who is adding to the next generation.
Secondly, it is government policy to increase the population and keep the Ponzi scheme running, and if the established population does not have enough children they will import other people’s children from abroad.
Thirdly, my parents had five children and they were not “feckless”, and their parents had over ten children each and they were not “feckless” ether, and I do not support a policy that assumes they must have been “feckless”.
May 26, 2025
Never heard of contraception or refused it?
May 26, 2025
Your point being?
May 27, 2025
If people do not want to limit their children by artificial means they had better be able to support them, and the country’s systems had better manage with the large increase in population. It is obvious, isn’t it?, that all the systems in the UK are no longer meeting the needs, in fact I would argue that this situation has steadily got worse over the last several decades – following the rapid increase in population from immigration not so much as from original residents.
So, my point is large families are a strain on already overburdened failing systems.
May 27, 2025
The indigenous British population is not even reproducing itself, so there is no need to worry about some of them having large families. Elsewhere in the world it is a different matter – eg the doctor in Gaza whose ten children had all been killed except one.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnvj3j27nmro
“Women in England and Wales had an average of 1.44 children between 2022 and 2023, the lowest rate on record … For countries to maintain their populations, the fertility rate needs to be around 2.1 children per woman. But despite a declining fertility rate in England and Wales … the population has continued to grow, largely because of immigration.”
May 26, 2025
+1
May 26, 2025
Rather than a benefits cap, there should be encouragement for good people to have children. Our birth-rate is unsustainably low.
Married couples, the ones who are doing the right thing, should receive a £6,000 increase in their combined personal allowance for each child. That will pay the same as child benefit.
(Include widows, widowers and divorcees with parental responsibility as well of course)
May 26, 2025
The whole benefits system has been corrupted. Originally benefits were intended to help those unable to cope or who had fallen on hard times. It was never intended to be a lifestyle choice which it has unfortunately become today.
The differentiation between migrants and native residents is a red herring. We should reflect on why so many migrants already living in Europe make such a huge effort to come to the UK.
It is not because of our glorious Mediterranean weather is it?
May 26, 2025
or heritage tolerance, religious acceptance, general better than subsistance living standards, ‘free’ speech ( perhaps on the way out), health care, housing, education …need I go on?
May 26, 2025
Starmer and Reeves are damned if they do – and damned if they don’t. They are severely constrained by the ginormous national debt, now approaching £2.5 TRILLION. The national debt is financed by short term borrowing; with the bank rate at 4.25%, this is costing us about £100 billion pa in interest payments. The government is then borrowing more to pay the interest which is added to the national debt. Clearly this is unsustainable
Earlier this month the BoE had to pull a long-term debt auction due to lack of buyers at the interest rate on offer. The UK is not along in having trouble financing its twin deficits; last week Japan saw it’s worst 30-year bond auction in decades, pushing yields above 3.2%. Similarly, the U.S. held a weak 20-year bond sale, sending the yield to 5%
The gold market, with average daily trading volumes of around $165 billion remains liquid and relatively stable compared to other assets. Gold’s role as a hedge against systemic financial risk appears more relevant than ever.
May 26, 2025
All Gold seems useless, unless you have a fast car and need it for the exhaust pipe.
I should exempt Mrs Gold too as she does grow orchids in her. Heated orchid house.
In other news European people of many nations are accustomed to their countries going bankrupt. So long as they don’t, they don’t care. Personally I loath British governments and can’t wait for them to be bankrupted so they are stopped interfering in things that should concern no government, maybe the immigrants will leave too.
May 26, 2025
Government became controls on the people a long time ago, governing in the nation’s best interest died decades ago.
May 26, 2025
I would prefer to abolish child benefit altogether.
That would produce the best results and save the most money imho
May 26, 2025
Agree
May 26, 2025
I very much agree with the cap as it discourages poverty and is fair on the taxpayer. Most taxpayers are struggling financially to make ends meet so why should they now pay for parents who culturally or otherwise want large families when they cannot afford it?
Also what kid wants to be brought into a world where they live in relative poverty? Relative poverty is worse than absolute poverty. When you are a child stuck living in poverty with nothing yet everyone else around you has more than you, does more than you, enjoys more than you and you are the one always left out the pain is terrible. This should be discouraged not encouraged. Removing the cap encourages it.
May 26, 2025
The is clearly an intellectually defensible case for having a cap on child benefits and in a state short of money relaxing the limits would not seem to be a priority. Funding a relaxation could be done easily surely by a government able to enrich Mauritius unnecessarily.
Immigration happens for other reasons (not least by this rotten government maintaining most of the open door policies and practices of the last rotten government) so cap changes would likely have no discernible impact.
The whole offer to migrants is unreasonably attractive yet once they are here some provision must be made for those unable to support themselves lest they are forced to turn to crime and other anti-social or otherwise damaging to society behaviours.
We are not expecting this government to think through this matter sensibly are we?
May 26, 2025
Scrap child benefit – instead make all children’s tax free allowance transferable to their parents. That way working parents get the benefit but those who are not in work don’t. To ensure that low paid workers can claim their tax codes code go negative so they are being paid a tax rebate each month but only if they are earning.
Tax free allowance is available to everyone universally as long as they have earnings.
May 26, 2025
Let’s dig a little deeper before we get into a quagmire of definitions – Just what is the purpose of the state subsidising families when they have a child?
Is it to encourage families to keep close to the official 1.6 limit imposed by government indoctrination, or is the purpose to encourage more children to be born?
Whichever way we look at this alleged benefit to change it just brings in more complications, and it wouldn’t be necessary if taxation was under control and families were not being impoverished by their own government.
Instead of paying a family benefits when a child is born, why not just add a few points to their tax code so that they pays less tax or get more tax credits?
If we want to encourage more births then we make those tax points more generous.
So, stop the benefits and make the tax system better, far less devastating!
May 26, 2025
No migrant should get benefits or healthcare and the Turkish barbers and similar need to be scrutinised.
May 26, 2025
I understand that the two child cap is applied for Universal Credit or Tax Credits paid to people on a low income, whether they’re working or not working. The cap does not apply to the standard child benefit, which is paid for all children.
When the cap was introduced, the Conservative government said it wanted people on benefits “to make the same choices as those supporting themselves solely through work”.
Maybe the universal child benefit should continue to be paid via the benefits system together with Universal or Tax Credits limited to the first two children …and any “reward” for further children should only reduce parents Income Tax liability (with no reduction beyond nil), via the PAYE or Self Assessment tax system ?
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2024/07/martin-lewis-two-child-benefit-cap/
May 26, 2025
Note Labour Party luminaries (Rayner re. child benefit and Brown re. WFA) think earning £50,000 (just over twice the national living wage and at the higher rate tax threshold) is enough to have benefits clawed back.
May 26, 2025
There are clearer targets to reducing benefits than depriving young children.
From the end of maternity support until nursery then school is hideously difficult, so until then support in terms of tax breaks for childcare for workers, plus vouchers for nappies and other items would be preferable to just chucking cash. Thereafter, school meals, after school and holiday clubs could be run by teachers giving up some of the extra holiday entitlements they presently enjoy. Lots of workarounds here.
Surely the main benefit targets should be elsewhere, e.g. public sector db pensions, where retirees often feed one mouth on multiples of the child benefit entitlements for a whole family.
May 26, 2025
If I remember correctly this child benefits cap only applies to children conceived after the caps announcement, if so I fully support it in principle, but there is a problem in that it does not punish the adults (for being reckless with theirs and others finances) but the innocent children. It’s a very blunt tool. Assuming it is not already done, could the State not pay UC onto a prepaid debit-card that would refuse payment for items deemed unnecessary, even blocking where and when the card can be used?
A bit of a low punch, Sir John, bringing migrants into the issue, why not also highlight the cost of providing universal winter fuel payments too, as campaigned for by the Daily Expresso (and GB News I believe), given the likely £1.5bn cost, a payment that would be restored to many who have no need for such a hand-out.
I also note Reform UK say they would scrap both the 2 child cap and the cuts to the winter fuel payment, but do so without saying how they would avoid the same £5bn fiscal black hole the right are accusing Labour of, it’s a funny old world is Politics…
May 26, 2025
A pre paid card that could only buy what the government decrees essential. Now I know you are a Commie.
May 26, 2025
@graham1946 +1
…and from the ‘data’ quoted, fed by official sources, in league with the state.
May 26, 2025
@graham1946; Yours is the typical unthinking knee jerk, no argument other than the usual abuse of calling someone a “Commie”!
So in your opinion it is quite OK for those on benefits to use taxpayer money to buy tickets to the footie, pay their Sky subscription, get drunk, but not buy a breakfast for their own child, expecting the schools ‘Breakfast Club’ to feed them at even greater cost to the taxpayer?
May 26, 2025
strewth jerry you fired both barrels and reloaded damn quick. Hope you could see what was at the end of the shotgun sight.
May 26, 2025
@graham1946; Just to add, your accusation that the suggestion of the issuing prepaid but restricted debit cards is some how “Commie” is laughable, considering they are wildly used to that effect to pay welfare in the USA, such as the “Electronic Benefit Transfer” card and the USDA “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program”, there use has been nationwide since 2004, although pilot schemes and development has been in progress since 1984.
Was POTUS Reagan also a “Commie” in your opinion, Graham?!
May 27, 2025
Struck a nerve I see with all the bluster you come out with.
May 26, 2025
@ jerry – A pre-paid debit card restricted in use as you suggest is there alongside Blair’s proposal that the police march drunks to cash point machines to extract instant settlement of fines. There will arise at once a market in debit card use to buy and instantly sell for cash approved items, clearly the cash then used to buy unapproved items. Rip-off discounts and theft will be rife likely. Beyond that, dodgy retailers may well book sales of approved items while supplying unapproved, again taking a discount commission for themselves.
Otherwise it is a tremendous idea and I contribute the extra that if debit card holders attempt to buy some permitted item but one the government is not keen on, when they tap in their pin the terminal gives then a shock to let them know they could have chosen better
May 26, 2025
@f57; Strange comment!
EBT cards appear to work OK in the USA, and as for ‘fraudulent use’, any credit/debit card can be miss used by holder or thief.
May 26, 2025
If the Child benefit cap is lifted, I would hope only up to three children. More importantly it should be paid only to legal UK residents. The practice of paying it to people living in other countries should end.
May 26, 2025
There are so many issues involved; ‘cost to live’ Vs Disposable Incomes, Rents, Tax Burden, etc,…
Solving this Country’s lack of Birthrate, even to cover the needed Growth rate? Alone, is that actually what is needed?
Population Growth; Increasing Migration Vs Focusing on the needs of the People of this country; Training, Skills, Access to an Enterprise focused Banking system, House building, Services, etc,…
Isn’t the real issue; The lack of Growth, Per Capita, Productivity, Lack of Investment in the Productive capacity (the Service industry’s that can never be enough, nice for the Population of London, and the South East! ), with Politicians/Establishment, not willing to focus on this country’s Competitiveness, Industrial Strategy, with it being easier for them to focus on their narrow group of voters.
Doesn’t GB need an Enterprise Cultural to match Economic Efficiency?
But, with problems involving being tried too, and burdened by, an over ridged economic structure! Remnants of the EU Single Market and Customs Union, over Regulation, ridged Prices or a lack of a working Price Mechanism, and Net Zero/Expensive Energy; Some Politicians only have one answer, and would like to force us back into the EU!!!!
Why bother discussing Cutting/Changing UC, when there are so many issues that need to be addressed before anything else! It really seems that the Conservative Party does not have any other answers, but blame other People. The real issue is within the Party itself! Lets hope they can prove they know, and really understand, the Laffer Curve, Economic Efficiency, and not just care about their own Money (House Prices)! The Economy has to be made to work for everyone, based on Economic Efficiency, but how? Do we add focus on Family?
But, there are still People that can’t Save, let alone cover the cost to live, that can’t own their own home, can’t train or re-skill, with the system itself being the burden! Life seems so pointless, with so many People being left behind, from the eighties! But, we’ve known this for some time, and the Conservative Party are still not addressing the issues, and offering real answers? They are intent on just focusing on a group that own Houses, Pensions, live within London and the South East, and they know will Vote; just too save them some Money/Pensions, and focus on making Cuts! Well now, it’s not going to work! The British People will recognise the Pattern, and are fed-up of this narrow minded nonsense (perceived Popularism), from Jenrick & co! And, neither is BJ the answer, at least find someone that doesn’t act like a buffoon!
Real answers? 4 years? Coherent whole?
Just a thought.
BR
RDM.
May 26, 2025
There is a case to restore child tax allowances against parents’ income, which encourages work without handing out even more benefits to those who do not work.
May 26, 2025
Sir John
To many questions each question actually spurning another question.
The child cap, or even child allowance. That is pure socialism, people without children then having to pay others to have them. Another idea that was well meaning at the time that has had its day and would now be considered ill conceived. It has by a very few been open to abuse and children became a way of getting income without contributing to the system/society. Then those without children also got others to pay for their children’s ‘daycare’ as some sort of right. Even ‘daycare’ is a modern invention, there is now no such thing as family just breeding as a commodity plaything for the State
The whole UK tax, welfare system is so distorted it has become corrupted. We need to get back to basics what is tax for? Is it to create the infrastructure framework to enable the country to thrive, keep us safe and secure and build in resilience and self-reliance. Or is it to fund a Socialist State that is descending into Marxism were the Politburo thrive and everyone becomes their thankful ‘minions’?
Then what is the real purpose of welfare, it shouldn’t be as now just a mechanism of the State to control, it should be with purpose is to lift people up when they get caught out.
May 26, 2025
There is an economic case to support families and children because of the decline in fertility beyond population replacement level. Currently, the deficit is made up through immigration.
May 26, 2025
Did inadequate income have nothing to do with it?
May 26, 2025
This is a Government with a PM and a Chancellor who have no clue about how to run the economy. Having just given billions to Mauritius for no apparent reason, they will not consider the UK’s financial position. If they think there are some votes in it, they will scrap the cap!
What ought to happen is that the child benefit should be scrapped and replaced with a generous marriage allowance. That is, then, fair to childless married couples as well. It may also encourage people to marry, rather than live together, as every survey shows that children do better in a stable family situation. However, they won’t do that because stable marriages are the foundation of a stable society.
However, the UK’s debt and the cost of interest on it, which Labour is increasing, will sink this Labour Government because people will stop buying UK debt. If you don’t take sensible decisions while you have a choice, decisions you don’t want to make will be forced on you.
May 26, 2025
The failure of successive Governments and Parliament has been led by personal, very personal dreams of utopia and to personally be the one that successfully bribed the people with their own money.
There was (and perceptibly is) a great idea called National Insurance. Essential the same as all insurance but a higher degree of compulsion. Unfortunately, UK Governments and Parliament are a corrupt bunch they see all inflows of money as their personal chuck it any where money. If national insurance had followed the pattern of real insurance funds it would have built up a fund to do just that – insure the depositors. But, no Government, Parliament allowed this future providing resource to become day-to-day expenditure on anything it personally wanted to use it for. As such the UK Government, Parliament and State run the worlds largest ‘Ponzi’ scheme.
Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison for what the UK Parliament, MP’s, Government and State are instrumental in doing – it is just as illegal in the UK as it is in the US. His crime was a £38bn over many years the UK Parliament, MP’s, Government and State are taking £200Bn a year and it can’t fund what the pretended it would when conceived – that defines it as a Ponzi scheme
I don’t think NI is wrong, it is the UK Parliament, MP’s, Government and State distortion of it that is wrong. It should be given the purpose intended, taken out of State controlled hands other than the compulsion. If NI had been kept to what I believe was its laudable intention, this business of criminal entry into the UK to share in the fund provided by its contributors would not exist – they have not contributed.
Reply It has been well established that the NI scheme is pay as it goes. Governments that looked at making it funded could see no way round how that would mean the then working generation would have to pay twice. Insurance companies can pay claims out of current premiums coming in, but do of course need to be able to demonstrate solvency.
May 26, 2025
CB is very unfair. If one parent earns over £60K the benefit is reduced or removed, but two parents both earning under £60k continue to receive it. So you can have one family with a household income of £61k penalised, but two parents earning £119k still receive it.
We should also stop paying it to children who don’t even live in the UK. Paying it to parents living abroad gives them an NI credit, which entitles them to a UK retirement pension. You now have the absurd situation where people abroad get a retirement pension from their home country, plus a UK one, when they have never lived here.
May 26, 2025
I am torn on this question. On the one hand everything Mrs Badenoch said is correct. On the other, we are having too few babies though Roman Catholic Boris is manfully doing his bit. A Hungarian approach, however, would only work if we stopped letting the whole world in.
The child benefit, previously family allowance, and married man’s tax allowance, used to be universal; but CB is now unfairly targeted against the single breadwinner, more often a man. This will happen again with the government’s reform of the heating allowance. So a couple each earning, say, £49,000, will hit the jackpot, but a traditional pere de famille on, say, £50,000, will not. These examples will be out of date but the principle remains.
Whatever happens about the cap, this injustice to traditional families must be set right.
May 26, 2025
The CAP on UC’s and the two child limit must be maintained. We are already overburdened with spiralling costs of benefits exacerbated by far too much legal and illegal immigration. At this rate these unaffordable measures will completely destroy our already damaged social fabric.
May 26, 2025
The introduction of the welfare state in the 60’s was supposed to improve our society, it hasn’t.
Whatever you reward you get more of, whatever you punish you get less of.
If you punish wealth you’ll get less wealth and if you reward indolence and irresponsibility you’ll get more of that, the welfare state has destroyed our inbred work ethics and left huge numbers of unmotivated dissatisfied people, it has produced the opposite of that which intended.
We should reduce all non-contribution benefits to the bear minimum and re-encourage self reliance and personal responsibility
May 26, 2025
Mertz has announced the lifting of long range weapons by Germany, France, Britain and the USA.
That means that restrictions on the use of Kinzhals and Zircons have been removed too!
Who is going to stop these morons before we are lol killed (including the entitled immigrants 😱)
May 26, 2025
It is right to encourage working British families to have more children.
Instead of welfare hand-outs, it should be done via generous tax allowances, say £5000 tax allowance per child (worth £1000 tax reduction at the standard rate). This would ensure that the benefit only went to working families, and not become yet another hamock for the welfare-addicted.
May 26, 2025
People who have children with a reasonable expectation of being able to fund them, no matter how many children they have, who subsequently fall on hard times, maybe the main earner falls sick or dies, or there are massive changes in their industry and they find themselves out of work, etc, such families need help, and that is entirely reasonable. They should get help.
People who have children while they are not working, or on very low pay, who have no realistic prospect of earning enough to fund those children, should certainly be discouraged from doing so. Including withdrawal of benefits, or tightly restricted benefits. Some parts of the community have such children intentionally, as a mechanism to force the state to provide them with enhanced lifestyle over and above what they would get if they were childless. Indeed, some parts of the community intentionally have disabled children to force the state to provide even more enhanced lifestyle, we should not be encouraging this.
More generally we should return to a system which pays benefits proportional to the amount of your adult life that you have actually contributed financially to this country. Put in place incentives to “do the right thing”. Stop “means testing” which discourages savings, and families looking after themselves, and do the reverse, pay more to those who have a history of doing the right thing. This is “tough love” which will incentivise the right behaviours, for the benefit of everyone within a generation.
But the biggest problem is actually the way social housing works. For one social housing providers have no incentive to shut down housing in areas where there are no jobs, and no incentive to open new housing where new jobs markets need more workers. We need to stop subsidising housing where long shut industries once were, the old shipyards, mines, steelworks, etc, the individuals living there need to be given control of their own housing subsidy and they will automatically use it to move closer to jobs market as it evolves. This is a massive reality that the ruling classes simply never grasp. It does not help anyone perpetuating housing estates in places with no, or insufficient, modern jobs market.
The state needs to get far better at helping the mobile workforce, who regularly move address to move to wherever their skills are needed, getting “on their bike” as Norman Tebbit would have said. These are people, who pay a massive amount of tax, get pretty rubbish state services (schools, healthcare, etc) due to their moves, and the state being incapable of dealing with that. And this same group also get rubbish help from the state if they fall on hard times and need help. This set of failures is even more extreme if you look at our canal boat residents, I have spent a few days at the Crick Canal Boat show and thousands of them are there, proper “salt of the earth” decent people, paying their way, and common themes of conversation are how poor the NHS is at helping them, even for the most simple things. You can imagine how they feel to see the NHS send in doctors to immigrant’s hotels, when the residents of canal boats, many laid up at marinas, and similar up and down the country, are often found dead in their boats having failed to get any routine regular care out of the NHS. Again, a decent mobile community let down massively by a state which throws resources at other demographics. Compare and contrast to how the “Traveller” community travelling around on land, in transit vans and similar, is helped & tolerated. Despite the canal boat dwellers being law abiding, tidy, cleaning up the environment as they move around, and so on. Why oh why.
Why is none of this stuff obvious to the political class John?
May 26, 2025
Removing the two-child cap would, in effect, pay couples to breed for a living. Is that what we taxpayers want?
May 27, 2025
You should not have children unless you can afford them. I never hear mention of child allowance these days as everyone says they cannot afford food but where does the allowance already given go? These days uniforms are bought cheaply from supermarkets/second hand fayres unlike years ago when only selected stores sold uniforms and it was a problem for families to send their children to schools they passed for (I am talking about grammar schools here). As we have a lot of immigrants coming in with many children (I heard of one Afghan with 12 children he had arrived with) and likely to procreate more with the many benefits they enjoy we will have an unbalanced type of country to go forward with. Serco is providing new homes which would cost ordinary young British families large mortgages free to immigrant families (see SERCO’s site of where they are looking to relocate the hotel and other immigrants to see the areas where this is happening. We are not being told the full story here and it needs to come out. Unfair treatment for the indigenous youngsters I am afraid is taking place.
May 27, 2025
Dear Sir John,
As with anything to do with benefits, this is much more complex and confusing than intended, at least to me. As I understand it, there is no cap on the “universal” child benefit, which can be claimed for any number of children, whether or not one is on means-tested benefits. The two-child cap for those born after 2017 is only for the bigger extra “child benefit” payable under Universal Credit. If I am correct, I wonder if Mr Farage understands this.
One of the purposes of Universal Credit was to ensure that anyone would be better off working. It follows that workless families will be worse off. Many families a little above the benefit line have been struggling for the past three years, so it follows that families with children surviving off means-tested benefits will suffer poverty. To confuse matters further, I understand that fewer than half the households on Universal Credit are workless, though that statistic may be misleading.
In reality, people are not necessarily better off working. Many things, from NHS prescriptions or chargeable school meals to events and entertainments, are free or half price for benefit claimants. As a result of attempts to help, new cliff-edges have already been introduced into Universal Credit as incentives to stay on it. Given that after-tax incomes from work are stagnant, this may not be the ideal time to put heavier emphasis on incentives. It is surely not the time to expand welfare by abolishing the two-child cap.
May 27, 2025
Parents supporting their own children without recourse to benefits to do so should seem normal.
Some things have changed for the worse, with increasing rapidity, possibly since Blair entered government. Now those parents being in difficulty and needing many years of support are so numerous, even the entire rest of the population may be unable to assist them adequately.
May 30, 2025
The two child benefit is enough
If parents can’t afford the child they should not have them it’s not the tax payer responsibility to pay for other people’s children this benefit should also not be paid to
Parents who’s children do not live in the country for children that don’t exist
Defrauding the country it is happening
Rumania is one of the worst countries
Thanks