Child Benefit (Hansard, 14 November 1988)

§ 8. Mr. Haynes
To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make it his policy to publish a long-term strategy for child benefit.

§ Mr. Moore
I shall continue to review the rate of child benefit each year in accordance with the duty that I have under the existing legislation.

§ Mr. Haynes
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I was born in poverty 62 years ago? Is he also aware that there is still poverty in this nation? The Secretary of State ought to be ashamed of himself for backing a Government who have frozen child benefit when children need that benefit. He is robbing babies. I have looked into the right hon. Gentleman's background. He was all right when he was a child. He can take that grin off his face. I want to know what he will do for the children of today and the future. He has cut child benefit by £130 million. It is tune that he gave that money to the children.

§ Mr. Moore
I shall not go into details of personal background, but the hon. Gentleman might like to recheck the debates of 1975 and 1976. I shall not bore him again with details of the decisions made on this issue by Mrs. Castle and her colleagues. but I remind the hon. Gentleman that if anybody should be sitting uncomfortably in shame, it is the giggling Opposition Front Bench. They should recall that, for almost all the time that Labour was last in government, the value of the child tax allowance and the family allowance for families on average earnings was far below in real terms what it has been under this Government. [Interruption.] That is not very good information for the Opposition, but they have to hear it. Only once—during the months before the 1979 general election—did Labour increase child benefit to a level fit 10 be compared with what has been achieved by this Government.

§ Mr. Marlow
Will my right hon. Friend and the Government consider reintroducing that child tax allowance about which he was talking, thereby reducing taxation and public expenditure at a stroke? If not, why not?

§ Mr. Moore
My hon. Friend will be aware of what I said in my statement on the uprating about our manifesto commitment. We keep our manifesto commitments. My hon. Friend will also be aware of my duty under statute to consider the nature of child benefit and other aspects of the economy, such as increases in earnings and reductions in taxation, as have occurred this year. I did that this year and I shall try to do the same next year.

§ Mr. Nellist
If the Secretary of State were to undertake a long-term strategic study of child benefit, would he look at the effects over the long term of the freezing of other benefits such as the pensioners' Christmas bonus, which has been frozen since its inception—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman must relate his question to child benefit.

§ Mr. Nellist
I have already done that. Is the Secretary of State aware that had the pensioners' Christmas bonus—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I called the hon. Gentleman because he has tabled question No. 25, which is on child benefit. I hope that he will stick to the subject of the question.

§ Mr. Nellist
Is the Secretary of State aware that had the pensioners' Christmas bonus been uprated by average earnings it should be more than £55 this Christmas?

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman must ask a question relating to that on the Order Paper.

§ Mr. Nellist
Are we to see—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I have given the hon. Gentleman a good chance.

§ Mr. Nellist
Are we to see—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman must sit down.

§ Mr. Nellist
You read it in Hansard and see whether it is in order.

§ Mr. Moore
I will never forget, and I am sure that the House will never forget, 1976 and 1975, when the issue not involved in the question was frozen for two years in a row.