What if you had worked out you could afford them but then the reduction in the tax credit meant you couldn't? In any case by limiting the tax credits and child support to X children you are effectively penalising those children born X+.

The answers are:
1) It depends on the individual.
2) It shouldn't, but it does.

The solution is that is to only apply that reduction in TCs and child benefit to those with children born after 1st September 2016.

It doesn't really solve for it, it merely allows the government to direct responsibility to the parent, the child, in practice the family including all the children, are still worse off.

That's about as much of a solution as you will get. Someone has to be responsible, the rules are clear, the decision is then down to the parents/would-be parents.

There's a real issue with food poverty in the UK and I would argue that government ending tax breaks and child benefit to those that are reliant on them and increasing food bank usage is worse than paying the benefits in their current form.

Allegations of exploiting benefits and entitlements have some substance but the issue is not as serious as to warrant removing the benefit from those who are actually in need. Saying to the kids it's the parents fault doesn't make the kids condition any less ****.

You aren't ending the benefit for any child that is either born or conceived. I agree that it doesn't make it any better for those children that are then born that would need the benefits but won't get them, I guess it is down to what you think is worse - the provision of those benefits and the incentives that this offers compared to the removal of them and the issues that it causes for the less fortunate families that need them but won't get them.

This.

So should we have a system of dictating how many children couples can have relative to their ability to pay?

Holding fresh food, for foodbanks, is impractical. Therefore, food bank food is often what I would refer to as muck meat. It's a real issue for them.

How much of a burden on the NHS will a nation of **** eaters be?

1. sell the nhs
2. feed them muck meat
3. watch cancer do its thing
4. ???
5. profit

We're on the reverse side of this but the style was pretty good in raising some real political issues rather than the usual.

The 'email from X' is s bit naff. If he carries on I hope he picks some names it's difficult for Cameron to remember easily.

Re the two questions:
1) I think your ability to pay that child's way until adulthood has to in part dictate how many children you have.
2) I have no idea how the numbers stack up, but (like smokers) at a guess, the more they cost the NHS the less they cost the pension system.

1. Seems like an infringement on human rights imo. Plus, the State likes more proletarians popping out.
2. Interesting point. Never thought of it like that. As far as I know though, smokers more than pay their way through tax on snouts. Where you getting your info from? I would imagine it is nigh on impossible to calculate these things.

I'm completely on your side re: your conclusion but this seems absurd. The only things I can think of even tenuously are the rights to life and private/family life, but the rights you're trying to invoke are those of the not-yet conceived, and further, it's tough to say the state is infringing them when it's passively allowing a state of being to develop rather than actively creating it.

I think it is a basic human right to procreate. Let me know f you need further clarification.

My point was that most people have sense enough to sit down and work this out for themselves, and so there is no need for a system.

JC was very clever in using this example in hoping to rustle Cameron.

The current format worked well as a one-off, however as long as this polite politics continues, Cameron will just pat everything back with his prepared response "blah blah blah blah but you can't have a strong NHS without a strong economy".

I agree this would be a sensible compromise.

I would guess the food available at food banks would be better than McDonalds/domino's/etc, which if you're a family on the poverty line would be the potential trade off.

Perhaps someone more knowledgeable about the Swedish welfare can clarify this if I'm wrong, but as a country that is seen as liberal and progressive, my understanding is the poorest people's welfare entitlement is part-paid my food vouchers, so they are given vouchers they can exchange for fresh food.

How would people react to this type of system in this country as an alternative to food banks?

it's a basic human desire and ability, but it's not a "right".

1. I don't think anybody is suggesting having people neutered. Simply that the state shouldn't have to pay child benefit etc. for someone to have half a dozen children. The state is already going to be picking up the tab for their education/healthcare.
2. As a smoker, if you get a private pension you are often entitled to a higher annuity, because you are likely to die earlier. http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/p...-products.html

You don't get that through a state pension - you just die earlier and save the state money.

I'm not coming down either side on this debate but:

a) it's not a human right to procreate
b) even if it were, that right isn't being violated here. Anyone is completely entitled to have as many children as they want, they just have to do so within their means.

Basically, I don't think the whole 'human rights' line of argument is the way to go here.

The argument about health and the state is a strange one. It's quite a disgusting argument when we consider it might be those who live healthy lifestyles who are the biggest burden on the state. There's not much (if any) upside to the state in older people living for decades with their expensive chronic conditions.

We have to divorce the provisions from the state from any judgement about the lifestyle of those making use of those services or it's not going to work properly. If there's concerns about lifestyles choices then tackle them with other social policy i.e anti-smoking measures are fine but the NHS mustn't treat smokers in a second class fashion.

Do smokers currently get treated in a second class fashion?

Not as far as i know. It's a handy example to use though and along with obesity it does get talked about a fair bit.

Refusing benefits to people with many kids is along the same lines. Social policy can be fine but there's a real problem if they are denied support on the basis of need.

They are all basically moral hazard issues - if it all goes wrong, someone else picks up the tab. I guess you can tax things like cigarettes, unhealthy food, alcohol etc. but you don't have that option with offspring.

Tax isn't the only social policy. Tackling the housing problem, higher wages rather than benefits, education etc

Indeed it isn't, but if you want higher wages rather than benefits you have to have an economy producing jobs that offer those wages and bodies that are capable of moving into them, neither of which are going to happen overnight.

Assuming that's correct, there's no need to do anything overnight. There's no imperative for the government to introduce the benefit cap.

Oh, right, you're one of those 'rights exist outside of the law' people.

It's a very reasonable, and in my opinion correct, claim to suggest that rights exist outside the law. For a very good treatment on this issue, I'd advise reading Dworkin (http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/fa...sSeriously.pdf).

That however doesn't suggest that a right is simply anything anybody comes up with. One of the things that really annoys me is when a parent gets in trouble for taking their kid out of school and claims "they have the right" to do raise their kid as they see fit.