Wes Streeting has defended his party’s policy not to scrap the cap on child benefit for just two children in each household.
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Labour had been in favour of scrapping the child benefit cap but reversed on the proposal late last summer because shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said it was unaffordable, provoking huge anger and debate in the party.
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[Ms Braverman wrote in The Daily Telegraph]: "The truth is that Conservatives should do more to support families and children on lower incomes… A crucial reform that Frank [Field] advocated was to scrap the two-child benefits limit, restricting child tax credits and universal credit to the first two children in a family. If they have a third or fourth child, a low-income family will lose about £3,200 per year.“Over 400,000 families are affected and all the evidence suggests that it is not having the effect of increasing employment or alleviating poverty. Instead, it’s aggravating child poverty.”
Mr Streeting told The Independent that poverty in the UK is forcing women to choose to have abortions because they cannot aford to keep the child.
But when The Independent asked him about Labour’s U-turn on scrapping the two child benefit cap, he insisisted that dealing with child poverty was “more than just about handouts”.
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[He said]: "I also know that that the answer to child poverty, ultimately, is not simply about handouts, it is about a social security safety net, that also acts as a springboard that helps people into work and with good work that makes the cost of living affordable for everyone.“That means that if you aren’t doing the right thing, and earning a living and playing by the rules, that you don’t just have enough to make ends meet, but you have enough to do the things that make life worth living. And we’re some way from that from that now.”
Holy crap, a politician that actually gets it, for once? Someone that actually understands that a strong foundation of social services will uplift the nation, making them healthier, happier, better educated, safer, etc, and thus more productive, more successful, more able to give back to the state to help support those very services and uplift the quality of the entire nation?
…Does he know that his party is basically at best a Centrist/Center-Right ‘Tory Lite’ these days? He won’t see a strong government run social system under either of the main parties, alas :-(
Labours would be slightly less ineffectual than the Tories, but they’re still just slightly shuffling things around to look like they’re doing something, whilst lining their pockets and focusing only on helping the economy (aka the rich). As opposed to focusing on helping their actual citizens, which in turn will help the economy.
Still, it’s amazing to see someone actually understand the situation for once and admit it publicly. It almost gives me hope!
He’s using those words to defend not giving benefits to the parents of a third child though. It’s just double speak: “it’s not about handouts is about a social safety net”. By playing into the framing of social safety nets as handouts he just defends the status quo. Definitely no evidence he really gets it.