h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I watched the Paxman interview the other night with the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt. He made the point that people should take responsibility for the number of children they have, in terms of whether they can afford it or not. Sounds great in theory; I think many people would say that people should do this. In an ideal world they would. But reality isn't an ideal world. There are plenty of people who don't think much about that.

So my question is how will the coalition enforce this in *practice*? I'm not asking about theory. I don't see how they can do it without a whole new swathe of bureaucracy that will have a devil of a time of it, investigating every case. They've already said that one of the reasons that their child benefit policy is unfortunately a bit unfair in terms of penalising families where one parent stays at home, is because they don't want to put in a new load of bureaucracy to administer mean testing.

Another point which Paxman makes is that as well as punishing the parents for their irresponsibility, the children will inevitably suffer the financial penalties. How is that to be administered in practice without hurting children born from such parents? Hunt didn't explain that.

And what if crime really rises as such families maybe turn to that as a way of dealing with having their benefits cut?

I just can't see how its to be done in the context of the present welfare state, without huge amounts of bureaucracy and likely inflicting harm on children.

Have the coalition really thought the reality of this through?

I tried to find the interview on YouTube but it isn't there. But its on iPlayer, 10 mins in.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00v8gs7/Newsnight_06_10_2010/

The only way to make it happen is to get society (i.e. all of us) to agree that only one or two children, unless you can afford more yourself independently) is socially acceptable.

Unfortunately though you *still* end up with the extra children suffering whether it's through lack of finances or being stigmatised socially, or possibly both.



It means we have to do what he suggests and take responsibility for ourselves. Which I cant see happening.

And then we have possibilities like mass-vasectomies and other Orwellian measures which I doubt would get much support.

It's simply bringing into line those who rely on the state handouts with those who work and pay taxes to support them. £26,000 is remarkably generous and a very good income, apart from London, for the vast majority of workers. Working tax payers are limited to the number of children they may have by income, why should they have to subsidise those who don't/won't?

As for bureaucracy, simply limit the child benefit to the initial two children. Why should the tax payer shoulder the burden of profligate child bearing. Contraception is free and readily available.

There's still an important thing being missed or ignored when we talk figures... Household income in benefits... Are we measuring how much cash is handed to the family ON TOP of housing benefits and council tax benefits? Or in total?

From 2006

A Labour MSP has called for contraception to be added to methadone to prevent addicts having children.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4763137.stm

I think the only possible way it could work (and bear in mind that what actually gets implemented will not be what is currently being discussed) is to apply any limit to new borns only. Thus any family with many kids that are claiming because they find themselves out of work for whatever reason will not be penalised for their misfortune - but those who are unemployed won't be encouraged to have more kids than they can afford.

I'm unsure whether there is a real problem here though. Not 'do people have kids to get benefits' - it seems it does happen. But how much of a financial problem is it really?

And them as wants that lifestyle will fund it one way or t'other. Historically, poverty (and thus lack of benefits) doesn't seem to have been much of a downer on childbirth numbers. Although historically less of them would have survived, hence at least one reason why it occurred.

So only the rich are allowed to have kids now, is it?

Hunt's my MP, and I'm not impressed with his record.

He's already upset Liverpool by blaming the Hillsborough Disaster on hooligans: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jun/28/jeremy-hunt-hillsborough-apology

And back in July, while announcing huge job losses in his department, he was bemoaning the loss of his chauffeur-driven ministerial limo.

Still, let's be fair. He was voted 8th most sexy male politician of 2007 - one place behind Ed Miliband.

Ed Milliband? Not David?

I prefer their two brothers, Glenn & Steve.

(Steve Miliband was on Jools Holland this week)

I got halfway through typing "Steve Miliband" into Wikipedia before I got it.

I still don't understand how such a thing can be implemented without a load new expensive bureaucracy. And if they don't intend implementing such a thing, why mention it in an interview with Paxman? You can be certain Jeremy will have stored up what has been said to him, for a later date. Now that he's actually said it, surely political opponents will be able to try to pin down the coalition on the practicalities. Its all very well to talk the talk..anyone that's all mouth and no trousers can do that..its how you walk the walk. Why on earth didn't he explain the practicalities of how it is to be done? Paxman really should have pinned him down on that, though he did try to pin him down on the aspect that its the children themselves who will suffer most - to no avail. I'd also like to know how they are going to deal with the likely increase in crime from this measure, seeing as police will likely be cut. Are all the wonderful new volunteers of new society meant to deal with it?

It seems to me that the coalition is doing an awful lot of talking at present. It'll be interesting how they manage the actual implementation in reality of these good ideas, and how that squares with real life savings, which they insist must be done really quickly, in the context of all the money needed to deal with the national debt. Or is this idea of enforcing responsibility of breeding some sort of vague airy fairy long term idea?

*big* society. How could I have made such a mistake? we hear it mentioned nearly every day.

"So only the rich are allowed to have kids now, is it?"
No, I don't think so.
But then again neither will it be OK to have kids without considering how you are going to support them.

I'm sure you'd agree that having kids is a personal responsibility?
It isn't just down to the state to pick up the tab after they're born.

As for the legislation - it should change, and it will I'm sure. It certainly needs to I think. And that's good, isn't it? An idea is put forward, people poke holes in it, idea is changed to something better?

Don't forget this is a policy to be implemented with effect from 2013 and with other changes relating to taxes and benefits rolling alongside it both earlier and later. People seem to be reacting like it is happening now - it isn't. This is the discussion and debate period.

I thought we were ment to be trying to move away* from a 'big society', all those obese children... or isn't taht what is ment by 'big society'?

this must really just be a lot of fuss over such an insignificent thing?: Despite all the media hype from time to time, I really can't imagine there are many people, in reality over the entire country who go about sprogging as quickly as they can to produce as many children as they can... So wouldn't any actual measure that required action by the government just be a big waste of money as its a problem that doesn't really exist or need addressing... And I thought we were all ment to be about saving* mony now
If they offered free sterialisation with some kind of incentive... oh, I dunno, a £5 book voucher I'd sign up

I think it would require slightly more than a £5 book token to persuade my DH to allow somebody to disable his family jewels.

Unless the procedure was being carried out by Denise van Outen, that is.

I had better raise my hand here and confess that I have three siblings. My mother's reason for having four children was 'because I don't see why only thick people should have lots of kids - it's important that clever ones do too'.

Please don't direct your ire at me, I'm just her daughter.

And I have three children of my own. We stopped at three because we couldn't afford to have more - insofar as anybody actually does any sums before having children. But three children will fit into an ordinary car and an ordinary house. Four won't. So even without thinking forward to school trips and university fees, it was the sensible thing to do. Despite the fact that at the time we conceived Osh we were in a fairly precarious financial situation, I think we would still have gone ahead even if that meant no child benefit for the youngest. The outlook was *so* bad at that point for us that frankly one more child didn't make a great deal of difference either way. But *two* more children would have done; and at the most basic, feeding-the-family level; so we stopped with Osh.

When I turned on the car engine on Wednesday lunchtime, some ghastly woman had phoned in to Jeremy Vine to give her view that poor people shouldn't have children ... although to be fair, she might have been saying something else entirely, as I immediately switched off. Anyway, this got me thinking: what about those who take on the children of other family members in kinship fostering/adoption arrangements? I know there probably aren't that many as a proportion of large families, but it would be unfair to penalise people who take on such arrangements - they're generally doing it to give the children a secure home and a better start in life. Not all large families are the result of excessive breeding, if you see what I mean.

So however the coalition put all this into practice, I hope they take account of this sort of situation.

Mol

child benefit for the first three children,

we need a growing population to pay for us older ones when we retire and want our slice of the pie we have been paying into all our working lives.

this could also put the govt into a head to head with the catholic church

with a surplus of chav kids, and the options for adoption, the country could then save a fortune on IVF treatments on the NHS.

Anyone know what the Chinese do?

Looks like classism to me. What about the middle class couple who have four kids they can afford, then one of parents gets made redundant and suddenly they're extremely cash strapped because of their high mortgage and credit card debt? Or they get divorced and the woman ends up on the solo parent benefit while the man goes off and does his own thing. There seems to be this idea that beneficiaries wait until they are on a benefit and then decide to have lots of children.

Maybe they should just make abortion mandatory for anyone on a benefit. I mean it's not really affordable to raise even one child on a benefit, so why not just make it illegal?

The thing that's missing from this debate is biology. Many (if not all) of the arguments here are predicated on the idea that we have complete control over fertility. We don't. There are biological issues that make this less than black and white. Some women get pregnant very easily. For many contraception either has side effects (the Pill) or is not reliable (condoms). Failure rates for contraception vary according to biology, technology and social factors. There are strong biological drives in many women to get pregnant. Many women make really good mothers naturally and want to have children in ways beyond simple intellectual decisions about finances.

There are cultural factors where having more children than white middle class people deem seemly is important because it creates cohesion in that culture and ensures its survival.

Oh yeah, and then there's poverty.

Yes we can try and control all those factors but lets not pretend that we are very good at it yet.


Personally I think there are far too many people on the planet, and the West could lead the way in limiting population growth across the board by changing its perception that everyone has a god given right to have children. Instead of targeting people who are already in a difficult situation, why not ask everyone to take some responsibility. My upper middle class family uses far more of the planet's finite resources than my poor working class and underclass friends...

I think that when children get to choose their parents we can give up child benefit payments entirely.

None of the comments here seem to recognise that it's to help raise *CHILDREN*. It's not a top-up for idle adults ffs!

I didn't start this thread to specifically discuss 'child benefit' pedro, if that's what you're referring to. There's already another thread for that.

It's about the Coalition policy of penalising parents financially, who have more children than they can afford, so that it means no-one on Benefits in general, receives more money than someone in work. At least that is what I understand from the Paxman interview with the Culture secretary.

I'm asking how that is to be done *in reality*. And I've drawn attention to the fact that they haven't explained how they will deal with the fact that the children will suffer from any such measures, as Paxman points out.

But I agree that child benefit specifically, is principally aimed at helping children, and not to do with parents, hence it is paid directly to the mother, who in most cases will be principally involved with child care. The Coalition have made a political football of that in terms of parents' finances. And yes they are also seeking to do that with their 'breeding' ideas, again, without explaining the effects on children.

I say they simply haven't thought through practicalities.