MNHQ - could you please point out an unfairness re CTF to the Government when you meet them?

[LilyBolero]

As we all know, the CTF is soon to be scrapped, but they are doing it gradually. The top up of £250 at age 7 is the first thing to be scrapped. Any child who turns 7 after 31st July 2010 won't get the top up.

Dd's birthday is in the 1st week of August. Obviously the cut off has to be somewhere, but it seems really unfair that 95% of her classmates will have received the topups, but she and a couple of others won't. Especially given that it was introduced as a start up fund to help with higher education fees.

Could you mention this? 31st August would be a far more sensible cut-off point, as then children within school years are all treated the same.

(I don't actually expect anyone to take any notice of this, but it is really unfair and worth pointing out I think!).

With respect what have school years got to do with it? Seven year-olds don't chat about the relative contributions to their trust funds during playtime, do they?

If we are to cut just do it asap - its agreed it has to go so from tomorrow would be fine.

Cut is asap. Two of mine won't get a top up.

Too bad.

We can't afford it.

Life is unfair.

Get rid of the Health in Pregnancy grant from tomorrow, too.

School years come into it because it was designed to help with uni/higher education fees.

I personally don't think all the cuts are the answer anyway - the amount they are proposing to cut/raise tax will simply mean people can't spend money in the shops, so revenue won't be raised, but businesses will fail, losing jobs and further revenue, plunging us into a further recession.

Well, this is one that, IMO, can and should be cut.

And people are going to have to rely on themselves for uni/higher ed fees, unfortunately.

It's just how it is.

As if £250 is goung to make the blindest bit of difference in the face for Further Education fees!

It is unfair, but as Expat says, life's unfair. Pretty much everyone is going to have to suck up a lot of unfairness over the coming years.

in the face of

expat, I appreciate that, it just seems mean that within a class in a school you can have a couple of children who miss out. An extra month wouldn't make very much difference to the bottom line in the treasury, but would mean that there was parity within a school year.

I'm afraid I don't trust this government with our economy at all, and far from David Cameron's promises pre-election to 'help hard-working families who have tried to 'do the right thing' ' (his words, not mine!!!), they appear to be targeting families on middle incomes specifically. And as I said further down, I don't believe that harsh cuts will raise revenue - for example the increase in tax on flights - people will simply choose not to fly, thereby taking money OUT of the economy and contributing to job losses, and not increasing revenue to the treasury.

31st august would cut out a lot of children in scotland as our intakes don't work the same as yours. but go for it, it's not like scotland matters any more, not to the cleggeron.

When is the scottish cutoff?

That's life, though, Lily.

They scrap the Health in Pregnancy grant, and you'll have people who miss out by a day.

C'est la vie.

I didn't vote this government into office, but they're here now.

And they are not going anywhere.

'for example the increase in tax on flights - people will simply choose not to fly, thereby taking money OUT of the economy and contributing to job losses, and not increasing revenue to the treasury.'

Not necessarily. UK tourism has picked up, perhaps in part due to the recession, and some areas of UK tourism and experiencing an upswing and therefore, increased revenues.

Plenty of attractions around here are experiencing higher volumes of local and other British visitors as people opt for 'staycations', camping, carvanning and other lower cost holidays.

february

Aitch - I get the feeling NO-ONE matters to Cameron and Clegg. Except for themselves.

You are probably right in that, Lily.

i never got a healthy pregnancy grant, i didn't get nine months mat leave etc etc... am self-employed so miss out on HEAPS of govt stuff that's administered through wages. shit happens.

no, they care about their vote, so will look after themselves in that regard. no one in scotland turned out for them, so we are officially history.

why august 31st op??

our new school years have just started here,after the half term bbreak.....

expat, I missed out on the HiP grant anyway, as dh lost the form until after the deadline. Obviously you're sometimes going to be just the wrong side of a cutoff, but it is hard if in a class of 30 children only 2 miss out, for the sake of 1 month.

True. I never got HIP or 9 months mat leave, either. Went back to work when DD1 was 8 weeks old (DH stayed home during the day) and DD2 was about 5 months old (had to use annual leave as I got 16 weeks at full pay but couldn't afford even a 10% drop after taht).

They couldn't care less about Scotland, though. I think there is only one Tory MP from here, though.

And the LibDems, for allying with them, have pretty much sealed their fate up here.

it's not hard, the kids don't know a thing about it, they're only seven. funny thing to get cross about i think tbh.

I didn't even reaslie they got a top up at the age of 7.

I'm cross about EVERYTHING political atm Aitch. I hate the new government, I hate myself for having been conned by our local libdems, and I think they have lost their political voice in their eagerness to get into power. Our local candidate not only said 'voting Lib Dem is the only way to keep the Tories out' but told me that they would NOT be going into a coalition with any party, they would maintain independence and tackle every issue separately. I feel cheated, and will never vote LibDem again. I would have preferred a Tory minority Govt, with the LibDems able to make independent decisions, supporting the govt where they agreed, but not forced to go along with policies they campaigned against prior to the election. (Bear in mind before the election the LibDems were saying that free schools would be a 'disaster', the Tory proposed cuts would be 'bad for the economy' etc etc etc.)

I only twigged about CTF this morning, as had to register ds3's birth, so was looking up how to claim CB for him, and found the link to CTF, and realised that dd was going to miss out on something all her friends will have received. It's not the end of the world, and in fact will mean she is the same as ds2 and ds3, so within the family is fairer. But I just can't see any logic in cutting it off at the end of July.

I don't think the government think about Scotland at all tbh - certainly the Tories have no representation up there, and therefore no interest in considering the Scottish.

Jeez, of all the government policies to criticise for being "unfair" do you think you could have found one any more irrelevant? We've got a fiscal black hole the size of Greece and you're worried about the CTF in particular school classes....?