I grew up in poverty – but lifting the 2 child benefit cap for all families is not fair on taxpayers
AS KING Canute found over a thousand years ago, it is quite difficult to stand on a beach and order the tide to recede.
Today, it is equally difficult to make the argument that giving families cash is not always the best way of lifting them out of poverty.
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This is especially true when one particular measure becomes the symbol of whether or not you’re on the right side of the debate about child poverty.
But as someone who now can afford the comforts of life, I constantly remind myself of my childhood.
The grinding poverty that I experienced when my father was killed
in a work accident when I was 12 – leaving my mother, who had serious health problems, to fight a long battle for minimal compensation.
Having only bread and dripping in the house was, by anyone’s standards, a hallmark of absolute poverty.
Why on earth would I question, therefore, the morality of reversing a Tory policy introduced eight years ago?
This restricts the additional supplement to universal credit – worth over £3,000 a child per year – to just two children.
I should know, my friends tell me, that the easiest and quickest way of overcoming the growth in child poverty is to restore the £3.5 billion pounds it would cost to give this additional money for all the children in every family entitled to the credit.
It is true that the policy, introduced in 2017, failed its first test.
Women did not stop having more than two children even when they were strapped for cash. It is still unclear why.
After all, many people have to make a calculation as to how many children they can afford.
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But one thing must be certain: namely, that if you give parents a relatively substantial additional amount of money for every child they have whilst entitled to benefits, they are likely to have more children.
Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, said as much last week. His argument for restoring the benefit to the third and subsequent children was precisely that we needed to persuade low- income families to have more children.
Surely having children that you cannot afford to feed is the legacy of a bygone era?
All those earning below £60,000 are entitled to the basic child benefit, so the argument is about just over £60 a week extra per child.
One difficulty in having a sensible debate about what really works in overcoming intergenerational poverty is the lack of reliable statistics.
Some people have claimed, over recent days, that over 50 per cent of children in Manchester and Birmingham live in poverty.
I fear that such claims should be treated with scepticism.
Those struggling to make ends meet – sometimes having not just one but two jobs – who pay their taxes and national insurance and plan their lives around what can be afforded, have the right to question where their hard-earned wages go.
The simple and obvious truth is that child poverty springs from the lack of income of the adults who care for them.
Transforming their lives impacts directly on the children in their family.
There is a limit to how much money taxpayers are willing to hand over to pay for another family’s children.
Helping them to help themselves is a different matter.
So, what would I do?
Firstly, I would ensure that families with a disabled youngster automatically have the entitlement restored.
This would self-evidently apply also to multiple births.
In both cases, life is not only more difficult, it is also harder to get and keep a job.
I would come down like a ton of bricks on absent parents.
My mum was a single parent because she was widowed; many others are single in the sense that the other partner has walked away.
The Child Maintenance Service should step up efforts to identify and pursue absent parents who do not pay their fair share towards their child.
We, the community, have a clear duty to support and assist those in need.
To help those where a helping hand will restore them to independence and self-reliance.
But there is an obligation on individuals as well as the State, and mutual help starts with individuals taking some responsibility for themselves.
Finally, if (and this is where I am in full agreement with colleagues campaigning to dramatically reduce child poverty) we make substantial sums of money available to overcome hardship, then a comprehensive approach to supporting the families must surely be the best way to achieve this.
As ever in politics there is a trade off. What you spend on handing over cash is not available to invest in public services: that is the reality.
Help from the moment a child is born, not just with childcare but with nurturing and child development.
Dedicated backing to gain skills and employment and to taper the
withdrawal of help so that it genuinely becomes worthwhile having and keeping a job.
A contract between the taxpayer and the individual or household.
Government is about difficult choices, that is why Keir Starmer and his colleagues are agonising over what to do next.
