Rupert Lowe MP@RupertLowe10
I’ve been married for 39 years, and we have four children - building a family was the best decision we ever took. It is an utter shame that so many British men and women feel unable to take the same decision because of the appalling state of the country.
Unaffordable, unsafe, unwelcoming - many couples believe they just can’t afford another child, or to have one at all.
My generation is the one that has left this mess, and what a mess it is.
What can we actually to do solve it?
Most importantly, tax breaks for parents. Let people keep more of what they earn. Reward work over dependency.
We need a serious policy platform to encourage British families to have more children - not foreigners who come and sponge off our state. But pro-family policies that provide for British men and women. All of this should apply ONLY to British citizens.
I love the idea of front-loading child benefit - pay more of the money in the earlier years, when the help is really required. Give new parents a real financial boost when the child is young and need to buy prams, cots, nappies and the rest.
Tax. Reward families with proper relief. Raise thresholds, widen VAT exemptions for essential child-related items, and expand tax-deductible childcare costs. Hungary-style tax incentives? Lifelong tax reductions for mothers? Its works well in Hungary.
Childcare. Reducing tax obviously helps, but we need more. Make it fully tax deductible. All of it. If you work, you get proper financial support. Ease regulation so ratios aren’t so strict? More children per adult allowed. That would cut costs. Encourage youngsters into childcare with proper bursaries, apprenticeships and so on.
Stamp duty reduction for British families - make it easier for young families to move into a home to meet their needs. Priority on the social housing lists. Ban access to council houses for foreign nationals. That would free up enormous space for British families.
Why should people on benefits get free childcare? If a healthy person is sitting on benefits for years, refusing to work, then no. You don’t get free childcare. You’ve obviously got the time. Impose strict limits so that space is given to find a job, but after that? No. You can look after the child. Foreign nationals should also not be able to access this funding.
Reform spousal visas - British citizens should be able to raise their families in Britain with a foreign spouse, without being treated like criminals by the Home Office. This would be alongside the ‘red list’ to root out fraud. That is positive immigration, and should be welcomed.
IVF. Widen access for British citizens. An investment well worth making - speak to any family who has been through it successfully. Money well spent in the NHS. For once.
Give a small number of holiday days per year allowed in term time so that families can get away for a holiday. Teacher training days IN TERM TIME. These random Mondays off so teachers can go over notes? Let’s do that in the massive amount of school holidays, please - there are certainly enough to choose from. That is something that should be explored too. Why not split schools holidays, so they don’t all overlap?
This isn’t rocket science, is it? Simple, cost-effective strategies that would benefit families.
By restricting all of these policies to British citizens, it would easily pay for itself.
Britain’s birth rate isn’t collapsing by accident. It’s collapsing because we’ve built a country where starting a family is a financial punishment.
Fix childcare, cut taxes for parents, reward marriage, properly support mums and dads, and the tide will turn.