Now That’s Really Dumb, George!
THE TELEGRAPH: Middle class parents who take time out from work to look after their children will lose out on thousands of pounds of Government handouts under a reform of child benefit announced by George Osborne.

In a move designed to save a billion pounds a year, the Chancellor annouced that higher-rate taxpayers will no longer be eligible for the benefits.

However the way the system is calculated threatens to put families with just one breadwinner at a disadvantage relative to households where both parents work.

This is because families with a combined income of £87,000 where both parents earn just under the higher-rate tax threshold of £44,000 are still entitled to the benefit while those with just one breadwinner earning £45,000 are not.

If the withdrawal of the benefit is not tapered, it could also mean that parents earning just below the threshold could be penalised if they get a pay rise.

The system relies on higher rate taxpayers declaring whether anyone in their household is claiming the benefit which can then be deducted from their earnings.

Mr Osborne defended the plan by pointing out that the costs of conducting a means test on every family would eat up much of the savings from cutting the benefit payouts. He claimed that the average income for households with one higher rate taxpayer is £75,000.

Speaking in an interview on ITV's Daybreak this morning he described the move as "a tough but fair decision."

He added: "It's just not fair to ask someone who's on £15 or £20,000 a year to be paying for the child benefit of someone who's on £50,000 or even more."

"At any other time, I wouldn't do this. But Labour left us with a heck of a mess." Stay-at-home parents to lose out in child benefit reform >>> James Kirkup, Political Correspondent | Monday, October 04, 2010

BENEDICT BROGAN: Child Benefit: What's fair about taxing stay-at-home mums? >>> | Monday, October 04, 2010

Brown Betrays Stay-at-Home Mums!
This government is about as inept as any government could be! Children need mothers at home. It makes a huge difference to their development. Children do not, cannot, raise themselves! Hence, our government should enable and encourage mothers to stay at home to care for their children. Apart from children benefiting from stay-at-home mums – we can see the results of decades of the neglect of the rôle of conventional motherhood everywhere around us – the country benefits from them, too. Mothers who stay at home are far more likely to have more children. And the fact is that the United Kingdom needs children, children called Jack, Timothy, or Christian! The demographics are turning against the indigenous population. If things go on as they are, it won’t be long before an Islamic flag, depicting the ‘sword of Allah’, will be hoisted above Downing Street. What are our politicians thinking about? How idiotic it is for any government to to demean the rôle of motherhood! – ©Mark

DAILY MAIL: More than eight million women who took time out of work to care for their children have lost their chance of a full state pension after a Christmas u-turn by the Government.

Ministers have dropped plans to give women with a partial pension entitlement the chance to make up the shortfall before they retire, it emerged last night.

The decision was slipped out in the Lords as Parliament adjourned for the holiday break, to the astonishment of peers who had been promised action earlier this year.

The Government had offered to back an amendment to the Pensions Bill that would have allowed women to make up shortfalls in their state pension entitlement by paying in extra cash.

But in what the Tories claimed last night was a 'betrayal of stay at home mums', ministers said they have now decided not to back the scheme. Betrayal of stay-at-home mothers: 8m women lose state pensions after Government u-turn >>> By Benedict Brogan

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