Child benefit expectations too high for Treasury
Channel 4 News political Editor Gary Gibbon asks if the government can afford to change its child benefit plans?
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A record 1.6 million children are now affected by the two-child cap on benefits – and that’s cranking up the pressure on the new Labour government to scrap it.
It’s been seven years since the two-child rule came into force, under which families can only claim benefits for up to two children, regardless of how many more they may actually have.
The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is considering whether to extend child benefit to hundreds of thousands more families in his spring budget – to give direct support to middle income families.
Lib Dem Danny Alexander says Conservative proposals in 2012 to cut child benefit and child tax credits, show where future cuts may come. The Conservatives say those plans were not backed by the PM.
Cuts to child benefit look like they’re here to stay, whoever wins the next General Election. Labour Leader, Ed Miliband, has now decided it would be too expensive to reverse the policy.
Britons are right to question the benefit “lifestyles” led by people such as Mick Philpott, says Chancellor George Osborne, as the case for a two-child cap on child benefits is raised again.
With more than a million families to lose some or all of their child benefit from today under austerity measures, Channel 4 News looks at who these changes will affect and what will happen next.
David Cameron defends the government’s planned changes to benefits insisting welfare reforms are fundamentally fair – and sets his sights on being prime minister until 2020.
Upcoming child benefit cuts will cost some families with three young children around £50,000 by the time their youngest child reaches adulthood, a new report finds.
As a million households receive letters this week from Revenue and Customs about changes to child benefit payments, Channel 4 News explains what is happening.
DWP figures show that some 160 claimants out of more than 3 million were getting the equivalent of £50,000 a year or more in 2010. That’s 0.0004 per cent of cases.
As George Osborne announces changes to child benefit, Channel 4 News explains what it means for you.
Channel 4 News political Editor Gary Gibbon asks if the government can afford to change its child benefit plans?
A lot of pre-Budget kite-flying going on. Always a danger that you raise expectations with exercises like that and then find you can’t deliver on them. On child benefit, the Treasury seems to be looking at a number of ways of ameliorating the child benefit removal for 40 per cent tax payers. All of them look pretty expensive. The plan is to have something ready to announce in the Budget on 21 March.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg says the government is considering how to avoid the “unintended consequences” of planned changes which would see higher rate taxpayers stripped of child benefits.