Reform UK MP Lee Anderson has said many families with 13 children are on state benefits and that they should get a job and contribute towards society.
Speaking to GB News, Lee Anderson said: “I think we need to stop - some of these parents are very active. 13 kids seem a lot in this day and age.
“Back in the day, 50, 60, 70, years ago, it was commonplace that families would have eight or nine children, but they had to work hard to keep their own children.
“Nowadays, it seems that if you have as many children as you want to, that the state will pick the tab up. It's not fair on the hard-working taxpayer and I strongly suggest if people can have 13 kids, a lot of these are on state benefits. They don't go to work, I know this from the people that I see in my surgery.
“They probably need to get out more, get a job and contribute towards society.
“It does send the wrong message out because these children are being brought up in a culture of nobody going to work in the household. It's more profitable, we know this, if there's a lot more children in the house.
“The parents probably don't go to work, they probably dependent on the on state benefits. It completely sends the wrong message out to children.
“Then they live in a culture where nobody actually goes to work in the household living on benefits. It's not fair on the state and it's not fair on the children.
“We have got a benefit cap but there are certain ways around the benefit cap, and I think it's about 22, 23 grand a year, and probably a little bit more in London.
“You can work a few hours a week and then you’re exempt. Somebody in the household could be ‘disabled.’ It could be the old man with a bad back, the old bad back syndrome.
That circumnavigates the benefit system, and some of these people are raking in 40, 50,60, grand a year in benefits. That's not fair.”
Commenting on the proposal for unemployed Brits to be sent to skills boot camps, Mr Anderson said:
“Let's be clear, bone-idle dole scroungers should be made to go to work, and if they do not go to work, they should have their benefits stopped.
“This boot camp, skills camp is, for me, a load of nonsense. It's simple. It's carrot and stick. If you do not go to work, you don't get benefits, and then you have to go and fend for yourself.
“Let’s stop being ridiculous. We need fruit picking in the fields, we need vegetables picking. We need stuff packing in factories. You don't need a skills boot camp to teach people how to pick potatoes out of the field.”
WATCH ABOVE.
