The political class’s new phobia: big families

After almost a week of media breast-beating about the Philpott case, a creepy consensus is emerging over benefits for children. Bernard Jenkin, the Conservative backbencher, wants child benefit to be limited in future to a family’s first two children. Lots of Tories agree. So does former Tony Blair speechwriter, Philip Collins. ‘This would save £3.3 billion if it were applied to all recipients,’ he writes in his Times column today. ‘Many working people take the responsible view that, though they would love another child, they cannot afford it.

Well, yes. No doubt out there is a degree of feckless fecundity among claimants, and that’s a bad thing. We should not incentivise greedy people to have children just so they can have more cash. But isn’t it a bit sinister to suggest that the state pay for a family’s first two children, and no more? Either the government supports children or it doesn’t. Cutting the payments off after two babies seems not only arbitrary, but cruel. Doesn’t