Apparently there will be a rethink on the scrapping of child benefit

[emkana]

according to the times today.

If they could look at the fact again that a household on 80k will keep it while a household on 42 will lose it then I'm all for it.

No I am genuinely being a bitch as DP has suggested that I sit in a room on my own rather than barking at everyone.

The head is a bit of both.

I think it should be kept as a universal benefit. I've read so many threads on here about women in controlling relationships whose partners allow them no access to the family money. For these women, CB is often the only money they can rely on. Isn't that why it was universal in the first place?

If it has to be stopped for those on higher incomes, of course it should be worked out on household income and not whether there's a HR taxpayer in the house.

Just to remind everyone that families on much less income have already taken a hit. At least the reduction in CB had plenty of warning with people realising that they don't really need to after all.

They tried to take the only income of £30 a week of many 16-19 year olds with 6 months notice, in the end they knocked it down to £20 instead for some of the lucky ones! The rest had it nicked off them.

Also WRT 2 income families still keeping it. What's all this 2 people earning 40K each. Most people are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think these earning levels are normal. Most people don't earn anywhere near the HRT limit that live in my area. Half it and you are nearer to the lucky ones, many are earning a lot less. If two people are earning then they are paying a hell of a lot more tax anyway.

For SAHM's living off their HRT husbands it wouldn't kill you to go out and earn £30 a week if you need it so much. A single parent doesn't have that option but had I been a single parent earning the HRT tax limit I could have easily done without £20 a week, as it happens I am a single parent earning less than half the HRT limit who have already taken a similar hit.

I had a sneaking suspicion that this announcement so early on in the coalition government was just a stick to beat the real victims of their policies with. i.e pretend we are hitting the richer ones then review it before it happens which will make us look fair but go back on it before it hits. I hope I was wrong.

It is fundamentally unfair that families with a lower income will lose it while families with a higher income will keep it. Whatever you think of the actual figures and what constitutes "well off", it is simply a fact that it is unfair.

It also troubles me greatly about the NI aspect - and I don't think they have ever said what mechanism they will use instead to ensure that people taking time out to raise children will not knacker their pensions.

I think they should keep it universal. It will cost a huge amount to administer it this new way, it is unfair. And the reason it was brought in in the first place was to give mothers some money for their children in case they had a right bastard husband. Women still have right bastard husbands and so the reason for making it universal has not gone.

With due respect Sardine, should women with the bastard husbands be looking after themselves, it's not the 1950's anymore. The could then go out and earn their own living and keep the precious CB.

Sorry typed that quick, 'shouldn't' and 'they.

Such a right ring view I can't even be bothered to go into it.

Have a read of the relationships board if you want to understand why women with right bastard men, who have children, often feel that there is nothing they can do. Some of them don't even realise their DH is being right bastard in the first place, they have that much control.

Your approach would be to deny them possibly the only income they have to look after their children on the basis that you think they're a bit, what, wet. Hmmm right well that will be a big help.

The other important aspect of the few universal benefits is that they make more wealthy people feel that they have a stake in the system.

Once you make an aspect of the welfare state only for "poor" people (if you're a tory you would understand the term "undeserving poor" better) then you are in a position to vilify the people who receive it with a view to reducing it further and eventually abolishing it.

I am one of the women with the "bastard" husband. Cb is the only money I get-dont get tax credits as didnt apply for them as dh is very secretive about his finances-I know he earns just over the threshold for the cb though.

They will prose cb from my cold dead hands. If it is the responsibility of the tax payer to inform them then I will simply tell my dh to keep shtum.

Okay people really have to get to grips with the word 'lose'. It's 'lose' or 'losing'. It is not 'loose' - that is how it feels when your trousers are too big. And 'loosing' isn't even a word. Please....

If I was a man I would be highly insulted that the state had to pay money to my wife or partner because there was a high chance I was a bastard. When I did have a bastard husband he simply spent the child benefit.

As a HRT I am also offended at the suggestion that I need a bribe of £20 a week to not hate those less fortunate .

Sardine, I'm not a Tory but am a single mother who has brought children up on my own so often find it difficult to understand how women stay with men who treat them and their children badly when there is so much support out there. I've always struggled with understanding this.

If CB was eventually abolished it would have to be paid back out as a means tested benefit to people who were deemed needy anyway. I can understand what you mean about people feeling they have a stake but (to use the usual tory justification statement) can we afford to give out say £40 a week to families with incomes of 100K a year to make them feel they have a stake.

A friend of mine is pregnant with her first atm, her partner is a high earner and she mentioned that she won't receive CB which I thought was a shame for the reasons you stated but she did add that they wouldn't need it.

yy Sardine; we all pay into the system through tax when we can, paid as a proportion of income, no need for more means testing. Thereh's no need to actually keep the dosh if you feel you earn too much. Give it to Young Carers/Barnardo's/NSPCC etc

Pedant alert - actually you can loose something - an arrow, when you're doing archery.

DH and I aren't eligible for CB because he is a US citizen working on a US air base - he gets no income from the UK government at all, and pays them no taxes. So we don't get CB and the US government pays our Council Tax - this seems fair to us.

We could, at times in the past, have claimed WTC. We didn't, because so many of our friends claimed and it was cocked up - they ended up having to pay beck, then got recalculated more, then asked to pay back again - we chose to do without a lot of things instead. We weren't eligible for any other benefits either

Now we're in the happy situation that because we've not had to rely on things that are being cut back, we aren't seeing a big drop in our income (other than inflation and public sector pay freeze). Compared to lots of people on higher incomes than ours (neither of us earns anywhere near £40K) we're actually much better off. I really feel for the victims of this ill-thought-out policy an hope the government do in fact make a U-turn and do it on household income.

adamschic: if you look at what Bevan was doing, and his ideas on the welfare state building community coherence, you will find much support for universality. I didn't know he was a great Tory thinker.

And universality is a side issue here anyway.

Families on £80k should not continue to receive a benefit which is to be denied to some families on £45k because of profile of income.

Oh so you are all happy about losing it as long other families that both go out to work but each earn less than your husband's lose it too .

Most benefits are not universal, they are means tested and so they should be.

I've just found this thread and will admit to not reading all 67 posts so, pardon me if I offend, especially as I am probably about to say something rather controversial.

My DH earns £45,000 and I earn £36,500. So together we earn £81,500. We WON'T be eligible for child benefit under current proposals when it changes (I think) in 2013 as my DH earns over the threshold. We're expecting our first child in January and I'll be honest by saying that not being eligible does not bother me in the slightest.

Our child was planned, with no thought or regard to child benefit. We wanted our child (hopefully children in the future) because of our wish to extend our family NOT because we get child benefit. We are firm believers that you live to your means and for US that means it's important that we feel that we can give our child financial stability without the need for a weekly income for the government.

My parents both worked in manual skilled jobs when I was growing up (became parents at 16 and 19 and again at 19 and 22). Neither one received the benefits that today's families receive. Times were tough but they got by. We didn't have the latest fashions, computers, video players and all other mod-cons that were new in the 1980's. But I will say that in today's world I often find that 'some' families who are on low incomes and receive an abundance of benefits to 'lift them out of poverty' have more gadgets and hi-tech things in their home than what I do now!

If a family can, whilst on benefits, have a Nintendo Wii, a play station, a Ninetendo DS for each of their 3 children, a holiday abroad every year, a new car every 2/3 years, i-pods for everyone, i-phones for the adults, mobile contracts, full sky tv membership, tv in every bedroom as well as two downstairs, nights out every weekend - do they REALLY need child benefit to 'get by'?

I'm not saying every family is like this, but certainly the ones I know are.

My friend works part-time. Her DP has a garage and I KNOW they fiddle the books to get as much benefits as they can. Yet they have full membership to David Lloyd leisure centre, shop at Waitrose and Marks and Spencers, buy their son new toys and clothes EVERY week, go on outings every weekend that involve a lengthy car journey so plenty fuel, have changed their car five times so far this year and have 80% of their son's nursery fees paid for.

Is THAT fair?

The WHOLE benefits system needs overhauling not just the current proposals for child benefit. I'm all for financial help for those who are on low incomes. But their 'needs' need to be individually assessed and if money is needed, given in the form of vouchers for things they NEED i.e. food, utility bills, uniforms, rent etc, etc. Too many families squander it on nights out, alcohol, mod-cons etc, etc - they sort of things that are LUXURIES not ESSENTIALS! I often see parents on all night benders every weekend, dressed in new clothes and spending money like it's gone out of fashion and these are the parents whose children arrive at school improperly dressed, unfed and are said to be 'living in poverty'. It makes me mad! Only a few months ago a family was deemed to be in 'in poverty' on local TV. But the single mum was dressed in named sports gear, with a packet of cigarettes on the arm of her chair, a TV with computer games console attached to it and a sky TV digital set-box! Her baby was dressed in named sports gear and had an abundance of toys around him whilst his older siblings sat dressed in their fashion gear on the sofa playing computer games!?!?

Not exactly poverty is it?

mmmmmmm - I have seen the other side - where my family - on benefits, in a council house after being evicted after dad abandoned us - had to use a mattress on the floor as a bed, had no telly, no phone - so please don't tar all with the Daily Mail brush.....

Now I am in the position where we will lose our CB - having just lost our CTC, having a Civil service hubby who has been on a pay freeze for 8 years, whose pension is being changed to their detriment.... so we have a lot more now than then, but it still hurts when it is taken away after relying on it for so long.

It has worked very well and cheaply as a universal benefit and replaced the "family allowance". There used to be a tax allowance whatever your income level - indeed more useful to higher rate tax payers than lower ones and perhaps we should be encouraging the rich to have lots of babies and the poor to be severely penalised for having them. Thus changing it so that only the highest rate tax payers get it could be best for Britain but I doubt I will find a supporter of that.

Ok so Ine of these sahp living off my hrt husband. We will miss chb and yes I could go and find a job. How will that help get people living on benefits back to work though?

I'm also incensed that workers here from the EU with dc living abroad will continue to get CB while HR tax payers living here with dc will lose it . Living in very expensive SE £ 42k is probably the equivalent of earning £30k in other places in UK with lower housing costs. I despair at our benefits system sometimes I wonder why I bother working as we have so little control how our taxes are spent. I'm all for leaving the EU as a result.

adamschic: I'd have no problem with means testing - provided it is done on total household income (as all other in-work) benefits are done.

There will always be people just over a threshold, upon whom the changes will bite hard. But £80k household keeping it, when a £45k one doesn't is unfair way, way beyond threshold iniquities.

BTW - why do you assume all households have a DH? Lone parents come out very badly from this.

Xenia: if you look at the early version of the Family Allowance, you'll see that it originally began only with the second child. Perhaps that's an option that could also be re-considered?

Why not just scrap it entirely? Surely people should only have children if they can afford to support them.