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First, let’s turn our attention to Reform.
As I’ve written several times now, while the number of babies being born on average is falling around the world (to 2.2 children per woman), our birth rate has fallen faster and harder than any other in the G7 group of advance economies.
Why does this matter?
Farage has a few ideas on how to increase the country’s birth rate. But while his diagnosis of the problem is correct, I’m going to explain why his solutions are missing the point.
“Lifting the two-child cap is the right thing to do,” Farage has said. In the same speech, he also promised to help people have bigger families. “We’ve lost our sense of focus on just how important family is,” he said.
Farage is right that the two-child benefit limit is punitive. When I interviewed former Prime Minister Gordon Brown last year, he told me the policy means that child poverty is now a bigger problem than pensioner poverty.
That’s less than the total annual bill for asylum hotels and a mere drop in the ocean compared with the £53bn spent on defence in 2023-24 alone.
Farage may have backed Labour into a political corner by endorsing an end to a policy that causes hardship, but would it encourage people to have more children?
According to the Office for National Statistics, the average rent for a three-bedroom home in England – where there would be one room for the parent(s), one for the eldest child and another for two younger children to share – is £1,301 per month.
Here’s the problem
And therein lies the problem. Child poverty ought to be a source of national shame for Britain, but so, too, should our shortage of social housing and lack of genuinely affordable homes for people to rent.
But if Labour does not step in with progressive policies to support young families and those who would like to have children, other voices will fill the void.
Hungary’s controversial hard-right Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has introduced free SUVs, generous tax breaks and subsidised mortgages for families under the age of 40 who have three or more children.
Indeed, in other countries such as France – which offers generous support to parents via subsided childcare – and Sweden – where generous parental leave is available – birth rates are also falling.
Politicians should look at housing as well as welfare.
Worrying about being able to afford a home is a key reason why people do not have children. It’s certainly why I, at 37 years old, do not have any. At the pub, when I do see my friends who have babies, they lament not being “able to afford” having a second, even though they’d love for their sons and daughters to have siblings.
Things are now so dire that even those on middle incomes may need state support to buy homes or else face renting forever.
However, the real price will be paid by the children who have been condemned to grow up in poverty and the young adults who could not afford to have the children they wished for.
The Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) think Chancellor Rachel Reeves should commit to investing in warmer social homes next week.
As a result, the CIH is calling on the government to invest a minimum of £5bn in retrofitting social housing at the forthcoming Spending Review.
It’s also certainly something I’ve seen while reporting on the state of social housing across Britain.
As things stand, the Government’s Warm Homes capital scheme is only confirmed to be funded until 2028 and the CIH warns, it doesn’t provide enough cash for all social homes to be brought up to date.
Vicky’s pick
Lauren is an incredible writer, she’s also utterly hilarious and, if you don’t believe me, check out her meme goldmine – the Instagram account @brutalrecovery which has nearly 200,000 followers. The book will be published by 4thEstate in July.
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