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Yesterday, Osborne announced at the conference that families where one member earns more than ?44K will not get child benefit anymore.

This strikes me as a bit of a strange one.

1. In April numerous Tory Cabinet ministers stated that the party was in favour of universal benefits such as child benefit, winter fuel allowance etc. and that they wanted to keep that universality. I know, politicians lie!!
2. If a family has two kids and one wage earner earning more than ?44K they lose ?1750 a year so from birth to adulthood they drop about ?30K. If a family has two kids and two wage earners earning ?40K each, they lose nothing.
3.This affects 1.2 million families. And the message seems to be a very un-Tory one i.e. strive to earn more and you will be hit to the tune of at least a grand a year if you have kids.
4. Despite stating for months that we should wait for the results of the spending review on October 20th to see what cuts are being introduced, Osborne brings this cut out pretty much in isolation at the Conference.

My guess is that having deservedly taken a pasting re. the Emergency Budget which results in the less well off paying proportionally more than the sectors wealthier than them, the Tories wanted to highlight their "fairness" policy by singling out this measure to say "look we are hitting the well off as well". I would guess that there is a dumper truck of shit coming the way of the less well off on October 20th. and the Tories are hoping that what will stick in people's memory is the well-off being hit on child benefit.

If that is the case, the inherent unfairness in this measure seems to have well and truly backfired for them.

Cheers
D

This is just the thin end of the wedge,thr winter fuel allowance wuill be next in the tories/libs sights,then free tv licences for over 75's.

Meanwhile, still nothing gets done to claw back the tens of billions (yes BILLIONS) of pounds in tax that large companies and the super-rich avoid paying by using various tax avoidance schemes.

For example it took almost 10 years between Lord Ashcroft saying he would renounce his non-dom status to actually doing it, and then a few weeks before he finally stopped being a non-dom a large proportion of the wealth he would now be taxed on was transferred to off-shore trusts for his children, so again avoiding having to pay tax like the rest of us.

I heard that ?11 billion is being put aside for super-fast rail lines to be built across the UK, so a jounrey currently taking 2hrs 30 minutes will take 1hr 40, and so on. These lines will be duplicating existing lines and just making the journeys a bit shorter, so these new lines are not really needed yet they find ?11b to pay for them. I am asuming this money is all coming from the Treasury. They can do that but still talk of massive cuts being essential in other areas because money is tight. Makes no sense.

David,
To save me searching the net, could you please tell me when Child Benefit was first introduced?
I don't remember my parents getting it when i was a child.
Also if I remember correctly when introduced it was not for a first child. and not upto 18.

It was introduced in 1946 under the great reforming Atlee government

I think Nikonman is right about it being only for the first child. I think it was introduced in the mid-70s (prob after the 1974 election) - I remember going with my mum to the post office when she collected it.

I suppose another point is why should anyone receive child benefit? If you can't afford kids, don't have them - why should non-breeders pay for other people's children? I have no problem with taxes going towards education/health etc but why just be given money for having children? I am surprised Harriet Harman is not on the case - doesn't this discriminate against the sterile?

Essex Lad wrote:

> I suppose another point is why should anyone receive child
> benefit? If you can't afford kids, don't have them - why should
> non-breeders pay for other people's children? I have no problem
> with taxes going towards education/health etc but why just be
> given money for having children?

Yep agree with that. "Can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em".

So if there were no child benefit it would be ok for the kids to starve?

It's not going to stop dead tomorrow though, is it? Phased out properly, no-one is going to see starving children thrown onto the streets.

After the benefit is gone, maybe the breeders will think a little more carefully about their lifestyle choices.