Nobody is ever likely to mistake Lisa and David White’s home for a child-free zone. Even if it weren’t for the sound of laughter and non-stop chatter coming from inside, the bicycles strewn across the lawn are a giveaway.
Behind the front door of their four-bedroom property in Monmouth, south Wales, the hallway is a maze of junior-sized coats and trainers. With all five of the youngsters born within seven years of each other – and now ranging in age from three to ten – it is perhaps unsurprising that Ms White describes their life as ‘very, very busy’.
But the daily 6am starts are less of a problem, she says, than the financial pressure.
Neither of the Whites (although they are unmarried, they share a surname after Lisa changed hers by deed poll) is working. Indeed, there hasn’t been a breadwinner in the house for the past three years. Their domestic budget comes entirely from the public purse – and they are among almost 200,000 large families set to receive thousands of pounds more in state handouts amid the widely anticipated removal of the two-child benefits cap.
It comes after Chancellor Rachel Reeves stated that she didn’t think it was right that children are ‘penalised’ for being in bigger families ‘through no fault of their own’.
Her comments are seen as confirmation that the two-child limit – introduced by Conservative chancellor George Osborne in 2017 – will be lifted in the Budget on November 26, a sop to the Left from the increasingly embattled Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer.
As things stand, the Whites receive benefits payments amounting to £1,935 a month.
This sum exceeds the standard child benefits limit of £1,835 a month (or £22,020 a year) because David also qualifies for a disability benefit (the Limited Capacity for Work and Work-Related Activity payment), which means normal rules don’t apply.
Lisa White with her partner Dave and their 5 children: Teddie(3), Bonnie(4), Arlo (6), Marley (9) and Leila (10)
Ms White and her children. The family’s domestic budget comes entirely from the public purse – and they are among almost 200,000 large families set to receive thousands of pounds more in state handouts amid the widely anticipated removal of the two-child benefits cap
On top of that, their £560 monthly rent – for a housing association property on a quiet estate – is covered.
Taken together, the Whites cost the state £29,940 a year.
For comparison, the average UK salary is just shy of £37,000, which after tax and National Insurance would leave an income of £30,159 – and less still once the rent or mortgage is paid.
Meanwhile, a person on the National Living Wage (£12.21 an hour for those aged 21 and under) would earn £23,809 a year for a standard 37.5-hour working week.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, 31-year-old Lisa insists having a large family ‘wasn’t something that I always planned’.
She says: ‘Actually when I was younger, I said I’d only have about three children and I wouldn’t have any before the age of 30.’
But after starting a relationship with David, now 35 – their grandmothers had been best friends since childhood – she had her first child, Layla, at 21. Layla is now ten. Four more children – Marley, nine, Arlo, six, Bonnie, four, and three-year-old Teddie – swelled the family ranks over the following years.
Neither Ms White or her husband are working. Indeed, there hasn’t been a breadwinner in the house for the past three years
Under the expected lifting of the two-child benefit cap, five-child families such as the Whites could be as much as £10,000 a year better off
Their circumstances changed when David was badly affected by Covid-related deaths he witnessed while working as a carer and activities co-ordinator at a home for dementia sufferers.
At the time, he had been earning £456 a week – working 48 hours for the then minimum wage rate of £9.50 – although the household income was boosted by working tax credits as well as the standard child allowance.
‘He just had a bit of a mental health crisis and he couldn’t work any more,’ says Lisa. ‘He kept going for as long as he could… until 2022. I was already pregnant with our fifth child when he had to leave work. It was a really hard time for us.’
Life has been ‘a lot different’ ever since. With a weekly shopping bill of between £200 and £250 (including nappies for the two youngest), monthly energy charges of around £250 and the costs of running a 2009-registered Vauxhall Zafira, she says their welfare income of almost £2,000 a month ‘doesn’t go far’.
But she insists: ‘I think there is a misconception because everyone who looks at me with five children says: ‘She’s obviously doing it for the benefits.’
‘But we made that decision to have five children when our financial position was completely different – and we weren’t relying solely on welfare to look after the kids. Dave was working and we thought we’d be OK.
‘But you can’t tell the future. We made the decision to have Bonnie based on the same thinking, and then Teddie, too. All of a sudden, it just changed. Now, we just have to work with what we’ve got.’
For her part, Ms White – who worked in the same care home as her partner before having their first child – stresses that she had always planned to return to full-time employment once the children were all at school. But that is no longer a viable option, she explains, because one of the children only attends school part-time. Dave, meanwhile, ‘can’t really take care of the children on his own,’ she says.
Speaking about the impact that removing the cap would have on her family, Ms White told the Daily Mail: ‘It would definitely make a difference to the kids. I’d be able to treat them if I wanted to. I’d be able to take them for days out.’
‘I’d love to be able to go to work, but the benefits system is in place for people who can’t. It would be impossible for me.’
She continues: ‘I’m sure there are mums who would love to be able to stay at home with their children and watch them grow up and do everything I’m doing.
‘I am grateful for what I get to do and I love being at home with the kids. But at the same time I’d love to be able to go and work and have a bit of time for myself. It would be nice to have my own identity as well.’
Asked about working families who might feel frustrated or resentful about her raising a family entirely at the taxpayers’ expense, Ms White replies: ‘I’ve been in that position as well.
‘I was in the fortunate position that I could stay at home when Dave was working. I used to look at families and think, ‘how do they manage when none of them work?’ It was hard for me seeing that other children were getting free school meals and my kids weren’t. I’d have to struggle to do their lunchboxes.
‘But when you’ve been in the same position, you can have sympathy for those people.’ She adds: ‘I know plenty who are working but still struggling. The cost-of-living crisis has just put a strain on everyone. There are things that we’re missing out on because Dave can’t work and I can’t work.’
On the subject of whether her partner will return to the workforce, she says: ‘I really hope so. He doesn’t want to stay at home, he wants to go back. Since he was 16, he’s always worked. It’s hard for him that he’s had to stop. He did hold quite a lot of guilt about it.’
Ms White insists, meanwhile, that she keeps a close grip on the purse strings.
Ms White – who worked in the same care home as her partner before having their first child – stresses that she had always planned to return to full-time employment once the children were all at school. But that is no longer a viable option
Neither Lisa nor David smoke or drink – while she dyes her hair at home and hasn’t visited a hairdressing salon since she was pregnant with her middle child.
Everyday shopping is done at budget retailer Lidl.
Their first-ever family holiday was a £58 off-season five-day break in a self-catering chalet in Butlin’s at Minehead, Somerset, earlier this year. The one extravagance at their lived-in family home is a 60-inch television set bought on hire purchase.
Under the expected lifting of the two-child benefit cap, five-child families such as the Whites could be as much as £10,000 a year better off.
The Treasury had drafted plans to ‘taper’ the limit – and reduce the handouts available as the number of children increases. But under pressure from its restive backbenchers, who also sunk plans to curb welfare spending in the summer, Labour is now set to abolish the cap in full at an annual cost of £3.5billion.
Former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown, who served as chancellor for ten years, has been among the most vocal campaigners in favour of removing the cap. Under the existing situation, Universal Credit and Child Tax Credit payments – which are both means-tested – are limited to the first two children, costing families a typical £3,455 in missed benefits for each subsequent child.
Normal child benefit is not affected. Department for Work and Pensions figures indicate that about 470,000 families are affected by the policy. Of these, almost two-thirds (297,000) have three children, while a quarter (117,000) have four. Another 37,000 families have five children and 18,260 are listed as having ‘six or more’.
Speaking about the impact that removing the cap would have on her family, Ms White tells the Daily Mail: ‘It would definitely make a difference to the kids. I’d be able to treat them if I wanted to. I’d be able to take them for days out.’
Asked if she thinks her children live in poverty, she replies: ‘It depends what you class as poverty but I don’t think of my children that way. We have a roof over our heads, we have gas and electricity and I’m able to go food shopping every week.
‘But if being above the poverty line means you can buy new clothes and shoes for your children whenever you like, then perhaps we fall into that category. I do have to buy second-hand for them. My definition of poverty would be to be homeless with no gas or electricity or food. My kids are warm and well fed.’
But as public finances come under huge strain – and with government data showing a sevenfold increase in people assessed as long-term sick, with many claiming to have mental or behavioural disorders – there are inevitable concerns about the benefits system being considered a bottomless pit.
While Ms White doesn’t believe the powers that be ‘have an obligation’ to help, she adds: ‘It’s really nice that the support is in place for families who do need it.
‘At the end of the day, the children don’t choose to be here – it’s us as parents who’ve made that decision.’
But are those parental decisions contributing to the massive pressure the country is under?
‘Looking at the whole situation, it does contribute to that [pressure],’ she admits.
‘But this is the tiniest part of the picture. I’m sure there is a lot more contributing to it than just us seven.’
