Single parent families will suffer under child benefit threshhold (From Haringey Independent)

Single parent families will suffer under child benefit threshhold

2:08pm Thursday 21st October 2010 in Readers' Letters

This Wednesday Tory chancellor George Osborne announced plans to slash child benefit costs in just about the most cack-handed way possible.

Families with a household income of £86,000 won't be affected if that money comes equally from two parents, but families where one parent earns £45,000 will say bye-bye to the benefit regardless of how little the other parent brings home.

I seem to remember that before the election the Tories were talking about the importance of marriage for bringing up children. So why now a perverse policy that means couples (married or not) who live together with a child, where only one parent works and is on £45,000, will lose a benefit, but get to keep the benefit if they're on £80,000 spread evenly between them?

Can we have a clear pledge from Lynne Featherstone MP, whose absence from Haringey and its concerns these days is all too striking, that she will resist this damaging and ludicrous policy and expose the flagrant hypocrisy of her newfound friends?

Tim Waters, Cunningham Road, South Tottenham