Principle lost in child benefit cut

Published: 7 October, 2010

• THE principle of universal child benefit is dead, despite the promises of the Conservative /Liberal Democrat government before it was elected. 

The Government has decided to cut it to the richest now in a mad and unfair way where a single earner on over £45,000 loses it, but double earners on £42,000 each keep it (so unTory!)

This is probably just the beginning. My suspicion is that it  will progressively become a benefit only paid to the poorest and be wrapped into the other new Tory/LibDem wheeze the “universal benefit”.

This means that “welfare” as benefits are being rebranded in the US style will only be for the very neediest. It will punish poor people with children and drive them out of places like Camden. We should not just close our eyes and let this happen.  We all pay taxes and national insurance so that when we have children, or things go wrong, or we are ill , or have to care, we will be helped out by the state.  Once that principle vanishes, we are left to sink or swim and only make the provision we can individually afford. It applies to universal services like school and hospitals too. By attacking child benefit, this is the road the Government is embarked on and if we allow it to happen, our society will become more divided, more unequal and more nasty.
Sally Gimson
Oak Village, NW5