00:00The cap limiting child benefits to children came in on the Conservative government as
00:05part of austerity, trying to cut the benefit bill for reasons which they believe was good
00:12and perhaps to encourage people to reduce their spending.
00:17What we're talking about, because these are children, and of course we know that we've
00:21got a problem in terms of what's known as the replacement rate.
00:25We are not having enough children as a society to replace the people here.
00:29And of course, as we look at the future, there is going to be more old age pensioners, which
00:33is going to be a difficulty for the society to afford this because we need people working
00:38to pay taxes, which then gets filtered back into the benefit system.
00:43So that's the context.
00:44And this has been a real bone of contention.
00:46This was an election manifesto promise under Labour.
00:50Keir Starmer got to power with the so-called Loves Majority.
00:54And indeed, there was even discussion until fairly recently as to whether to do this.
00:58And there are some within even the Labour Party who think, well, yeah, it's a problem in
01:03terms of affordability, although in the big scheme of things we're talking about probably
01:06a couple of billion, which I know is not exactly a chicken feed.
01:09But nonetheless, this is money that's going to be given to families who have more than
01:14two children.
01:15And the other contextual factor is that poverty has risen very dramatically since the period
01:22of austerity, which starts in 2010 under the coalition government.
01:26So that's where we're at.
01:28It will happen.
01:29Of course, it could be reversed under sort of a new administration, but that's the future.
01:32We don't know what will happen.
01:34There is, as I have indicated a couple of moments ago, concern with the Labour Party.
01:38Is this the right thing to be doing?
01:40Because, of course, what is actually happening at present is this will sort of require money
01:44from taxpayers.
01:46And of course, we're talking about middle income earners who will have to contribute more in
01:50terms of taxes.
01:51And of course, I know tax rates have gone up, but this is about the sort of the freezing
01:54of the thresholds, which means progressively we're going to pay more and more tax.
01:59What we've got was a budget that was purposely intended to appease backbenchers within the Labour
02:05Party who came to sort of to power, promised their constituents they would do something
02:09about child benefit, particularly for sort of constituents who have larger families and find
02:13it very difficult to make ends meet.
02:15And indeed, if it does nothing but to improve sort of child poverty or sort of brings that
02:19down, then it will be a good thing.
02:21But hey, the arguments will continue as to whether it was the right thing to do in a period
02:25where sort of you're asking sort of workers to contribute more, which, of course, is the
02:28sort of the big issue.
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