Cuts anything but fair

Published: 14 October, 2010

• THE Conservative/Lib Dem coalition went to great lengths to promise that cuts would be fair and progressive. But nothing could be further from the truth.

The announcement that any household with an earner on higher rate tax will lose their child benefit is nothing more than a financial assault on single parents.

If you are a dual income household your income can be nearly £88,000 before you lose the benefit.

If you are a single parent that threshold is £44,000 pounds.

To have such disparate thresholds to be eligible for a benefit is clearly anything but fair.

It’s still the case that 90 per cent of single parents are women and a far greater number of children in single parent households grow up in poverty.

This will hit parents in Camden particularly hard.

A household income of £44,000 when you’re trying to bring up kids doesn’t stretch very far in central London these days.

This discrimination against single parents will hit their children hardest.

It’s difficult and expensive to raise kids in London.

It’s even more difficult to do it on your own and the Tory/Lib Dem Coalition government shouldn’t be using the benefits system to penalise those parents who, through no fault of their own, find themselves in the unenviable position of raising kids alone.

CLLR SARAH HAYWARD
Cabinet Member for Communities, Regeneration & Equalities