Child Benefit (Hansard, 4 February 1991)

§ 10. Mr. Cousins
To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he intends to make any changes to child benefit.

§ Mr. Newton
I have already announced that, from April, an extra £1 a week will go to the eldest eligible child.

§ Mr. Cousins
Does the Minister agree that a Government who can subsidise chemical plant construction in Iraq to the tune of several hundred million pounds during the 1980s have no need to cheat children of £2.30 per week by freezing child benefit as they have since 1987?

§ Mr. Newton
What the Government have done—there has been no mystery about it—is to examine the pat tern of support for families with children. In recent years, until this year when I announced an increase in child benefit, we decided that the right priority was to give extra money to the least well-off families with children. Those are families on income support and in receipt of family credit—in other words, low-income families in work. About £400 million of additional resources in real terms has gone to those less well-off groups in recent years. I make no apology for that.

§ Mr. Lester
Does my right hon. Friend agree that child benefit makes a valuable contribution to all families with children? Does he further agree that those who suggest returning to a tax allowance should look back at the history of this benefit, which was an allowance and was then converted? Does he agree that we should retain the value of child benefit, that it should be indexed and that it should continue to be paid to the mother, or the woman in the family?

§ Mr. Newton
No doubt there will continue to be a lively debate about precisely what the balance should be—not least in terms of my previous supplementary answer—between different forms of giving support to families. I made it clear in my uprating statement, and I am glad to make it clear again to my hon. Friend today, that child benefit is and will remain a strong element in our policies for family support.

§ Mr. Meacher
Does the Secretary of State recognise that if the Government abolished child benefit—which clearly they are considering—Nye would be the only European Community country with no universal child benefit? Will he confirm that, after four years of Tory freeze, child benefit per child is only half that which is currently paid in France? Will he at least have the grace to acknowledge that, unlike means-tested family credit and child tax allowances, child benefit has the combined advantages of 100 per cent. take-up, of being cheap to administer and of involving no poverty trap? Will he confirm that only child benefit achieves that?

§ Mr. Newton
I can only think that the hon. Gentleman has been present in the House on at least four or five occasions in the past few months without listening to what I have said. I repeated this afternoon and if the hon. 10 Gentleman did not hear it 30 seconds ago, I state again that child benefit is and will remain a strong element in our policies for family support.