Another one of those benefits threads

lemonjelly

Harry, I see where you're coming from, but think there are a few generalisations. I feel there is great difficulty with the "if you can't afford it don't have it" notion. In example, happily married couple, 2 kids. Suddenly, horrible accident at work kills one parent. The other has to give up work to look after the little ones.

Should they be excluded owing to not being able to afford to support their children?

Further, what happens if someone excluded does have a child? What happens then? Social services has them? Think about the cost burden this imposes.

Personally I see why child benefit should be means tested. I also think tax credits are way to generous, as well as being a useless system.

I also think that too many benefits are overly generous for the over 60's.

ILW

carolt wrote: »

So I take it your preferred alternative is to let poorer children go without the basics.

Good to know.

Should that not mainly be the responsibility of the parents?

Harry_Powell

SingleSue wrote: »

Dependent on education, if a child leaves education at age 16 and doesn't go onto an approved course or 6th form, then child benefit stops.

Child benefit can be paid until the child is 19 if they stay in education or on an approved course.

Thanks Sue. We would therefore set a date where CB is no longer paid, and over the course of the next 19 years, the benefit would be phased out.

Harry_Powell

lemonjelly wrote: »

Harry, I see where you're coming from, but think there are a few generalisations. I feel there is great difficulty with the "if you can't afford it don't have it" notion. In example, happily married couple, 2 kids. Suddenly, horrible accident at work kills one parent. The other has to give up work to look after the little ones.

Should they be excluded owing to not being able to afford to support their children?

Further, what happens if someone excluded does have a child? What happens then? Social services has them? Think about the cost burden this imposes.

Personally I see why child benefit should be means tested. I also think tax credits are way to generous, as well as being a useless system.

I also think that too many benefits are overly generous for the over 60's.

CB isn't paid to insure people against the loss of a parent, it's paid to all parents to subsidise their child costs. I'm not saying we should scrap the entire benefit system, so any scenarios like the death of a parent would be covered by other benefits if necessary.

We have limited resources and as such, they should be targetted more effectively. What is better, having £20M (or whatever CB costs) distributed across every parent in the land, or that money used more effectively for those who need it most?

SingleSue

lemonjelly wrote: »

Harry, I see where you're coming from, but think there are a few generalisations. I feel there is great difficulty with the "if you can't afford it don't have it" notion. In example, happily married couple, 2 kids. Suddenly, horrible accident at work kills one parent. The other has to give up work to look after the little ones.

Should they be excluded owing to not being able to afford to support their children?

Further, what happens if someone excluded does have a child? What happens then? Social services has them? Think about the cost burden this imposes.

Personally I see why child benefit should be means tested. I also think tax credits are way to generous, as well as being a useless system.

I also think that too many benefits are overly generous for the over 60's.

I agree in regards to your point about unfortunate circumstances, we could afford to have our children when we chose to do so..it happens and is not actually that rare an occurance.

I also agree with the child benefit and means testing, at one point, we didn't need it, it was just a nice little bonus to be put away in our savings account (Disneyland Paris 1st class all the way got the fruits of that! Kids loved it as it was a surprise treat for them).

But I disagree with the over 60's, mainly I think because I see what my parents receive (nothing apart from a basic pension as dad had private pensions which takes them over pension credit levels). The vast majority of pensioners have worked and paid into the system for many many years and not taken anything out of the pot for all that time.

I would much rather a pensioner received a bit extra to heat their home than for me to receive a bit extra to get extra food....I can go without the extra food as a healthy adult but a pensioner counting the pennies, cannot go without the heat and stay healthy.

Harry_Powell

carolt wrote: »

are you suggesting to phase it in over 18 years? If so, I'd agree - trouble is, policy isn't usually made 18 years in advance, as few govts can count on being in power then to see it through - and this one more so than most...

I've stated quite clearly that I believe this measure should be phased in and also mentioned that we have a precedent in the Pensions system, where government policy is phased in over the lifetime of many future governments.

At present we have seen the retirement age of women increased from 60 to 65, the retirement age for everyone increased from 65 to 66, 67 and 68 (dependant on year of birth) and we have seen the reduction of NI contributions for a full pension come down from 44 years to 30 years. All of which have been phased in over decades, a similar time frame to the 19 years I'm proposing here.

carolt

Fine then - I agree.

Don't faint in shock, Harry.

Harry_Powell

Harry_Powell wrote: »

We have limited resources and as such, they should be targetted more effectively. What is better, having £20M (or whatever CB costs) distributed across every parent in the land, or that money used more effectively for those who need it most?

Woah!!!! I've just discovered the cost of Child Benefit and it's not the paltry £20M (admittedly I did think I was way under with that guess), it's actually now accounting for around £11 billion a year!!

£11Bn paid by everyone to help subsidise people to raise their own children, many of whom do not need it in the least!

This madness has to end!

Harry_Powell

carolt wrote: »

Fine then - I agree.

Don't faint in shock, Harry.

Don't worry carolt, I don't find it shocking that you're in favour of scrapping a benefit after you've finished receiving it.

fc123

Harry_Powell wrote: »

I think the guiding rule should be - is this individual better off, i.e. advantaged over another individual, regardless of whether they have children or not and if so, that clearly needs to be changed.

The first thing the government should do is get rid of Child benefit. This is paid to every parent regardless of whether they are living in poverty or living in a mansion. Following closely on its heels should be the Child Trust Fund - again paid out to the poor and rich alike.

Child benefit is a real sticky one as I know families who don't 'need' it but it's ''very useful free money'' so it get's spent in the general economy or saved for the child to buy a car, for example, when they reach 18.
For others it's a crtitical part of their monthly budget to cover essentials.

Over the years we have needed it depserately and, at other times, it has just accumulated in an account, then got used in leaner times.
We currently give it to DD as an allowance (as she has to buy most of her 'phone credit and fun clothes/make up/ going out) but, if it was stopped tomorrow, it wouldn't be a crisis for us at all.

Maybe combining child tax credit and child benefit, so it's means tested, would be fairer.

Can I just add to this thread that I am close to quite a few lone parent families in RL and every circumstance is very different so, as LIR says, it's almost impossible to allocate benefits based on ''genuine'' need and those that choose to play the system a bit....like the scenario in the OP.