Broken Promises and Yet More Cuts.

George Osborne’s announcement yesterday that child benefits will be cut to middle income families should have been nothing of a surprise. After all, this is the government that seems to want to make the young in society suffer the most, with the cutting of the BSF, Sure Start, pregnancy grants, Future Jobs Fund amongst many others. However, during the election campaign, one thing that was explicitly and repeatedly said by both parties in this coalition government was that universal benefits would not be cut. It seems clear now, that these election promises were just words. Only this morning, David Cameron was forced to apologise for not including these cuts in their party manifesto. An act of omission is one thing; a broken manifesto promise (which this is) is another.

Nobody denies the deficit or the fact that it has to be tackled, but the reality is that the deficit was caused by the irresponsible actions of the banks, not the average hard-working middle income families. The current government have attempted to insinuate that they had no choice; that their backs were against the wall over these cuts. Let me be very clear; this government had a choice and this is what they choose to do. They have on the one hand chosen to cut these benefits under the premise that it is only fair to ask everyone to contribute to the deficit, whilst on the other hand chosen to give the banks a multi-billion pound tax cut. Where is the consistency or ‘fairness’ in that?

However, for me, the problem goes much deeper. By deciding to test child benefit on single salaries, as opposed to the household income implies a complete disregard for single parents and the right of mothers (or fathers) to choose to remain at home. The reality of modern living means that families often make the choice to keep one parent at home, on the basis of the other being able to provide a higher wage packet. Furthermore, these proposals may place undue pressure on stay-at-home mums and dads to re-enter the workplace at a time when unemployment is still high, and these roles could go to those in desperate need of employment.

If the Tories were only after fairness, then I would argue that it is only ‘fair’ to look at household incomes, not to punish those that have worked hard and slowly and consistently worked their way up the salary ladder. They may be classed as middle-income but the reality is that a lot of people rely on these payments, set their budgets on the basis of having these payments and the loss of thousands of pounds a year (in addition to the earlier cuts mentioned above) would have a profound adverse reaction on them. In addition, the expected announcement of married couples tax credits all seem to paint the picture of what this government sees as the ‘ideal’ family set-up, a view which is not shared by me. One can only look forward (ha!) to October 20th to see what other misery this coalition has in store for families, children and the rest of us already struggling with their annihilation of public services.

Pavitar Mann
(Labour consultant)