Cameron defends child benefit cut
Tuesday, 5 October 2010 5:40 PM
David Cameron sought to shake off middle-class anger by defending the government's decision to cut child benefit for high earners.
He insisted the decision to scrap the payout for those earning over £44,000 from 2013 was the fairest way forward but acknowledged doing so was a difficult decision.
It follows George Osborne's announcement of the move yesterday before his speech to the Conservative party conference in Birmingham.
"As we pay down the deficit we have to ask better-off families, those with the broadest backs, to bear a fair share of the burden," the prime minister told Sky News.
"Saying that it is not right to go on paying a billion pounds of child benefits to families where there is a top-rate taxpayer that seems to me a very important statement about fairness."
He was forced on to the defensive after a junior education minister, Tim Loughton, appeared to suggest it may be necessary to water down the measure.
"If there are ways we can look at compensating measures for those genuinely in need that will be looked at in future budgets," Mr Loughton told Channel 4 News.
"If the thresholds need to be adjusted there's plenty of time to look at that."
Earlier today, David Davies said more time should be taken to consider the anomolies of implenting the system.
The BBC reported today that the government planned to introduce a tax cut for married couples and civil partners before the next general election, in a sign it was increasingly concerned about attacks on the policy's effect on families.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Yvette Cooper was quick to attack the comments as evidence that the government's child benefit attack was "unravelling".
"The chancellor only announced means testing this morning, and already the children's minister has admitted that the thresholds need to be looked at again," she said.
"They have clearly been taken aback by the reaction of parents across the country. George Osborne and David Cameron obviously don't understand what it means for families on middle incomes to lose thousands of pounds a year."
The move has been criticised for leaving single parents worse off. Under Mr Osborne's proposed plans two couples who together earn more than £44,000 but do not individually reach the threshold will be permitted to continue claiming the child benefit. A single parent earning more than £44,000 will not.
Uproar over changes to the child benefit could be dampened by today's conference speech from work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, who is expected to unveil major reforms to the welfare state.
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