The fertility rate in the UK was down to 1.4 last year. The population replacement rate is around 2.1. If there are no children, there is no state. Or at least you need mass migration to replace the missing people.
The next generation is everyone’s responsibility regardless of whose children they are.
Benefits bill or total welfare bill?
Child and working age benefits are less than 50% of the total welfare bill. Those pensions are more expensive.
Not a peep on the fact that net immigration has tanked either.
That all depends on if the children are born into a family that have a work ethic.
A lot on welfare stay on welfare and their children also get sucked in to the same philosophy.
Working class families are the ones that should be encouraged to have more children not those on welfare.
May not be the popular opinion on here though.
The majority of benefits to people with children are in work benefits.
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Not saying I agree entirely with your point but I can understand where you are coming from.
It’s a real hard area to assess, there are a lot of families that genuinely need benefits but there are also a lot who abuse the system and as you say a number who do nothing, expect it and almost promote this lifestyle to their children.
I appreciate the above quote is a rhetorical question but there are a lot more factors involved. I would have thought that Pensioners, contributing by paying tax/NI, etc is a more valid reason for state welfare.
I am not saying @LondonRich is right but whilst children shouldn’t suffer/live in poverty because of factors inherited, there also shouldn’t be an expectance for the State to support people having children with no means of providing for them.
One of Labours manifestos was to get people working and as of yet they have done little to correct this problem.
Well, not really.
Reform is coming strong in Croydon East. Whoever has the best chance of keeping those cunts out will get my vote.
Why would there be, 110,000 people out of the 204k net immigration claimed Asylum.
Revealing discussion here (callers and comments).
I would argue that the UK is, fundamentally, held back by the systemic inequality of a system that every so often puts a crown worth enough to feed thousands of families for a year on a monarch’s head.
I would also argue that this belief in a natural order of things is on full display in this video. Work hard and one day you too will have a house worth £2m quid, how dare you question this…
The perverse correlation between ‘hard work’ and ‘financial reward’ needs to stop. It is pathetic how many people below stick up for those above in the hopes of joining the club one day.
I do think the whole Council Tax banding needs an overhaul and this maybe a quick win before a detailed review.
This post needs a double like.
Don’t look after the kids here, WITHOUT QUESTION damaging their future capacity to be productive contributors to our society.
But don’t allow immigrants looking for a better life through the doors either.
Fix it, but don’t do those two things.
Goober logic.
Precisely. It’s very easy to conjure up justification for not supporting people who need it without understanding the real issues.
The state/ society will pay the costs either way. Better to pay upfront and offer the right interventions than play the moral high card.
Sure. If you ignore the white/ green papers / announcements (and accompanying funding) they have made on the Youth Guarantee, the reorganisation of jobcentre and careers services, provision of apprenticeships to Small and medium businesses and other programmes aimed at people who are inactive.
They’ve been in government for about 18 months. These things dont get done overnight.
I agree.
Unfortunately, as with many aspects of life peoples views are often made on the minority who abuse the system. It is easier to feel wronged than appreciate what is good.
But the state also pays in the long run surely? More children, living longer, relying on the NHS and themselves becoming a pensioner. Morally both are equally valid.
I don’t know the answer, but my opinion is that people are increasingly expecting/demanding more from the state, almost as if it’s their right.
Announcements are nothing until delivered, the truth is they have increased Welfare spending. They have already made a climb down on some of their proposals and a u-turn on the 2 child benefit cap.
I appreciate things don’t get done over night and that they got dealt an awkward hand (as do most newly elected Governments - you don’t get voted in if everything is going well) but 18months and still there is no real plan. Reeves softened us up for a Tax Rise, only to change the narrative after receiving better OBR forecasting. It seems a bit reactive than proactive.
I’m amazed that council tax has lasted as long as it has, considering that it was a quick and dirty fix from the Major government. I suppose it basically achieved what the poll tax tried, which was to limit the tax burden of the largest asset owners.
Personally, I would prefer a land value tax, because it charges based on the assets used, rather than what is made of them.
Which I have already alluded to in the two posts you responded to.
And, no, both are not equally valid morally. How can it be if you are consigning a generation of people to poverty and lower outcomes, particularly if there is no financial upside from doing so?
Applies to all groups.
I think that removing the 2 child limit actually was one of its manifesto items. Labour never refused to remove it when in government but had to find a way to balance the cost of doing so against other fiscal challenges, so I don’t see how that is a u-turn.
As for increased welfare spending much of it is still driven by an ageing population either through pension increases or by staying on working age benefits because of the pension age changes.
The winter fuel and health changes it didn’t go ahead with I think left the government with an additional £5bn in spending.
The measures announced in this budget will I think I read cost around an additional £2.7bn per year from I think 2027 and £3.2bn per year from 2029/30.
However, the current budget, if we consider it through the tax income raised minus day-to-day spending, and before investment, is still projected to be in surplus in 2028/29 and to reach a surplus of around £25bn by 2029/30.
There is a plan and it’s being delivered upon. Officials will have been spending the last 18 months working on the planning and preparation for these. Much of their employment focused stuff is being de-centralised with a lot of it being picked up initially by the mayoral regions to reflect the impact that local challenges can have on people when trying to get training or a job.
There are contracts that need drawing up and signing off. Providers and local governments need to get their own ducks in order.
As it stands the initial phases have been rolled out and the budget provided funding for the next stages of delivery.
The government tried to be more proactive when it first came in but has been hamstrung by a range of factors, many outside of its control. Any arguments it tried to make about the economy or its financial position has largely been affected by those (tariffs, additional defence spending, BoE, contracts from the previous government with BoE on how it would wind down its bond holdings, BoE not cutting interest rates sooner, or the overly pessimistic forecast by the BoE, OBR and other forecasting organisations that have been repeated by the media almost daily (. There had been much talk of the gap being £40bn (NIESR I think had a figure of £50bn at one point this summer).
This obviously affects spending decisions the government makes or what investors ask the government to pay for lending it money.
He would.
Not as bad as Trump, since he is not insane, but he would change things. But not as much as the Right Wing thinks.
The question is rather why you think Reform would change things for society, as well as you, for the better.
No:
1 John 3:16-18
16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
Deuteronomy 15:7-8
7 If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. 8 Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need.
Deuteronomy 15:11
11 There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.
The Bible is full of this. One could quote for a very long time. I do not understand how you can write what you wrote, as you are old enough to know it for nonsense (I would hope).
Just force women to have children, with increasing rewards for the increasing number of children. Finally find a cause worthy of those Knight titles Brits dole out like candy to rich people. Easy. It would clearly cause less of a political backclash than immigration.
Oh wait, some people have too many children, they cannot support them. Conundrum !!!
In the post WW2 years, this was essentially the UK policy, as child benefit was only paid on second and subsequent children.
Honestly not illogical, if increasing births is the goal. Though it’s problematic if there is no benefit for the first child for a variety of reasons that I should not need to embroider.
But then child benefit should probably increase per number of children etc, or you have a brood being raised in poverty and anti social dynamics, leading to low education and crime and more social problems.
But this isn’t what the anti immigration people want. They are not championing increased child benefits.
In any case: For the population to go up, you need either women to birth more children, or immigration. That much is pretty clear. For the first, you need generous social programs.