Should child benefit be means tested?

[JustineMumsnet]

There's a new report from the Tax Payers' Alliance which recommends means testing for child benefit - possibly scrapping it for households with an income of more than £50 000. Channel Five Live would like to know what mums think of the idea?

(Am going on at 11)

It's like means-testing bus travel for pensioners, Tony Blair actually telling the truth and Gordon Brown making contact with reality . . . it'll never happen.

I don't agree with CB being means tested for the reasons stated here, but all this talk about people earning 50k being badly off is bollock quite frankly. I grant you that for 2 people on 25k it is different as they are probably paying heaps on childcare but if one of the parent is earning 50k and the other chosing not to work then I bet they still have a pretty good life, and the reason why they are cash poor at the end of the month is because they are getting the benifit of a nice house, and all of their other lifestyle choices.

As for MPs list:

'50k take home = £2900
average mortgage: £900 per month
7%ish for pension: £200
various insurances: £100
average council tax/water/gas/electric/TV/broadband: £320 per month
Foor per month: £500
Going out as a family once a week for a meal: £160
Car hire purchase or loan perhaps?/petrol: £150
Savings (£150 fairly modest?): £150
Once a year holiday, say £1500?: £125 per month

We are now down to £295 per month remaining to spend on fripperies such as clothes, going out, erm boilers exploding, that sort of thing.

It isn't really a VAST amount for a fairly modest standard of living.'

Seriously? £1500 for a hoilday, £160 for a family meal? Savings? £500 on food a month? And only having £295 for fripperies.

How about NO holidays per year? £250 on food? Meal out once a month maybe? And usually only because my mum is visiting and paying. No savings, university debt, no fripperies? Earning 28k a year between us. Renting eternally. And I don't consider us to be that badly off. I talk about us as being the middle income earners that end up badly off. Sorry - this is a complete aside but I just wanted to refute this notion that higher earners are badly off, they are usually badly off because of their lifestyle choice. All this 'we have no money because of our huge mortgage' pisses me off. People who have huge mortgages have correspondingly bigger houses.

End of rant.

A £50k salary in London does not make you well off - and I doubt £900 is the average mortgage in London and the south east.

You've got to remember that plenty of companies still operate regional pricing policies - so people in the south east tend to be charged more for their gas, electricity, petrol, food, clothes etc.

Sorry - off topic. But I have to moan about transport in London.

Two things 1. London is big 2. London is way congested.

As a rule of thumb, you have to be either VERY lucky or VERY well off to live anywhere near where you work.

The combination of this fact and ant two above, means that you inevitably have to use the tube or trains if you want to actually get to anywhere, eg. school or work, that day.

Buses are effectively for ornamentation, local journey and tourists.

Poor old dh has a commute of 11/2-2hrs, on the (speedy) tube, each way, to get to work of a day. Ds has a commute of 1 hr, on a train, then a bus, my commute is (a mere) 45 mins. We'd never se each other if we used the (far cheaper/free) buses.

And agree, 50K in London is not going to make you well off.

IvyKaty, child benefit for however many children isn't deducted from income support at all.

Child maintenance, (if you are lucky enough to get it) may be, depending on how much it is. LP's are allowed to keep £20 of it IIRC.

Not sure why it's deducted from the mother's IS rather than the children's tax credits. Does anyone know?

Riven - you may not believe it but it's true.

that's why some salaries have 'london weighting' - the cost of living in London and the south east is notoriously higher than the rest of the UK.

I live in the SE and we are always travelling to the Midlands to see the in-laws. Prices in the shops are the same as here.

(Motorway prices remain out-bloody-rageous however - DD had a £5 baked potato last time we stopped )

My MIL lives in Walsall, a suburb of Birmingham and we've been to supermarkets there, my millionaire SIL lives in Worces and it's the same story r.e shopping. Petrol is just as expensive as are utilities.

Rent and house prices are very different though. Not sure about council tax either.

Ninks -since when?

Cos they always took the amount you got in cb of your IS (the exact same amount depending on how many children you had and how much cb was paid out at) and so basicly you didn't get it and as ar as I know that hasn't changed.

Petrol is the most expensive where there is least competition: there's a garage near here (south Wales) that routinely features in papers for being 20p above avergae price.

Likewise food- food costs most when you don't have access to the big supermarkets and have to butb from the local Spar or whatever becuase there is nothing else. I see old aldies in the local who have no car spending twice as much on basics as I do for 6 in the town.

I don'tthink CB should be means testied for the many reasons aloready give, and I think cost of living is very ahrd to assess- house prives a major factor byt access to shops, transport etc all contribute;as we have no train statiopn for example we have to run a seocnd car for dh, as do manjy people around for schoolpurposes- it's quite fiddly really.

W'd get it no matter what,so no pesonal interest here LOL- kust know ther is more to rural ish) living than house prices.

IvyKaty since the two years I claimed it for and the four my sister has been doing it. I also have a fair few friends who are LPs.

The whole point of this debate is that child benefit is NOT means-tested therefore no matter how rich or poor you are, you get it. They factor it into IS when calculating what the government says you need to live on.

This doesn't say anything about deductions and neither does any other government page I've looked at.

Did you have it taken away? If so, that's terrible!

I'm not sure that it should be means tested, but, it really used to annoy me when I was a teenager that we were very, very poor and relised heavily on the family allowance for food, whereas a friend of mine at school used to be given hers as pocket money

Yes it was taken from IS they took money away for the amount you got in cb - although not actually taking the cb away - just the same amount in money. not me at the tiem but people I was volunteering.

Which is rather sad when i you earn then you get cb but at that time if you don't earn it was the only time it was taken away.

I would like to see every child continue to receive cb and not one single child have that money taken away - however much there parents earn or don't earn.

IvyKaty that's not right! IS is a pittance anyway. Are you sure it wasn't child maintenance? That's a scandal - ask, check and complain!

Look at the main benefits calculator here and play around with it. Child benefit is always added on no matter if someone is earning or not.

Custardo My dp is earning 50K and I can assure you we cannot afford pimms on the golf course. We receive child benefit and basic tax credits. Yet my dp pays a fortune in Tax and NI. I guess quite a bit of that is going towards paying tax credits to lower income earners. I don't mind this. Its a fair system. Yet Child benefit is the only money I receive directly into my account. I cannot afford to work at the moment is childcare for my 2 children would cost more than I would earn. as my DP is managagement he works long hours so I cannot work evening either.

Just had a look. If you enter info as a LP not seeking work with one child, child benefit of £20 will automatically come up.

My dh is a doctor, and there is no way we sould get CB, as he earns way over £60k.

I like the fact I get pension recommendation for the years I am getting CB as I am a SAHM. but we shouldn't get money - we don't need it!

Like I said, it's in the realm of Fred Goodwin giving back the money he stole from the taxpayer.

It's more likely I'd enter a convent, people.

Don't get me started on Fred Goodwin.

no no no
it pays for decent shoes x6 twice a year

Actually it's more like the tax payer bended over and let Fred Goodwin have his wicked way. If the government weren't so ineffective it wouldn't be a problem.

we don't need it. it goes straight into the DS's child trust funds.

yes - over £100K