Let's stop paying welfare mums to have big families

WORKING parents face a lot of tough decisions but maybe the hardest of all is deciding whether to have another child.

Working couples think carefully about how many kids to have Working couples think carefully about how many kids to have []

For most people the decision comes down to money. That’s why Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, struck a chord with many families this week when he said: “The vast majority make decisions about the number of children they have... based on what they think they can afford.”

Mr Duncan Smith wants jobless households to face up to this choice too. He has suggested that benefit payments should be limited to two children so that welfare mums cannot go on having more babies while taxpayers pick up

the bill.

Lib Dems in the coalition are already threatening to block this proposal but Mr Duncan Smith has raised an important question and his idea deserves to be taken seriously.

As he explained, it’s not just a matter of cutting Britain’s huge benefits bill, it’s also about fairness.

Why should their taxes be spent on allowing a jobless household to avoid these tough choices?

Working families are feeling the squeeze because wage rises have not kept pace with the increased cost of living.

Couples are putting off having children because they need both salaries to pay the rent or to keep up their mortgage payments.

They also worry about the price of childcare and the sacrifices they will have to make to give their children a good start in life.


THE majority of working couples nowadays limit their families to just two children. From the Seventies onwards families have been shrinking and it’s become quite rare for a mother to have three or more babies in her lifetime.

But, as Mr Duncan Smith also pointed out, there are exceptions. Among well-off couples, having three or four

children is not unusual. That’s not surprising if an extra child or two isn’t going to force changes in your lifestyle.

But there’s another kind of household where having more children is also popular: families who are completely dependent on the state.

This is not as strange as it might seem when you think about how the welfare system works. If a young woman has

never had a job she will not be making a financial sacrifice if she decides to have a baby.

Her housing needs will be taken care of so she will probably get a home of her own for the first time in her life.

The payments she gets in child benefit, tax credits and other means-tested support will cover day-to-day expenses.

Every child she has will qualify her for more benefits and a bigger house so having lots of children won’t make her worse off.

If she doesn’t live with the father of her children she can get cash from him and still keep all her benefits. In fact she will probably end up with more spending money than an average- wage family.

That is not just unfair to taxpayers it has also destroyed the connection between effort and reward. The result is that

Britain has a higher proportion of children in jobless households than anywhere in Europe.

Children growing up in a home where no one goes to work are less likely to get jobs themselves.

They just don’t know what working life is about.

One of the reasons why Iain Duncan Smith is bringing in the new universal credits welfare system is to make sure

that people are always better off working than living off the state. Until the new system kicks in the Government is

capping benefits so that no family can get more than £26,000 a year in welfare.

The crazy sums being spent on housing benefit show how welfare has run out of control, with big families being given large homes in smart neighbourhoods at taxpayers’ expense.

Councils are now having to tell these families they must either get a job or move somewhere cheaper.

Chancellor George Osborne has also proposed that jobless young people under 25 should not have their rent paid by the state but should live with their parents.

Of course this would have a big impact on teenage mums, who would not be able to move into flats of their own.

There would no longer be the option of going straight from school to a life on benefits.

It’s not just Conservatives who are talking about this.

Labour’s Frank Field has recently argued that people should expect to make a contribution to the cost of welfare

before being able to draw on it.

CRITICS say that stopping welfare payments to big families would create hardship but Mr Duncan Smith has made it clear that these changes would only apply to new claimants.

For example, mothers-of-two would be told that they would not receive any extra benefits for having more babies.

In the case of housing benefit, school leavers could be told that they would not qualify for it unless they got a job.

Those genuinely unable to find work would be offered training or work experience but would be expected to live at home. That’s what many under-25s are already doing, whether they are working or studying, as they try to save up for a better future.

A life on benefits is no future at all so let’s close off this option for young people. Let’s also ensure that jobless families make decisions based on what they can afford, instead of expecting taxpayers to keep on footing the bill.