Cuts to "middle class" benefit hurt us all

Submitted by Matthew on 7 October, 2010 - 9:34 Author: Rosalind Robson

It was always going to be a politically divisive cut among Tory supporters. That is why the Tories used their own conference to announce the cuts in Child Benefit for the better-off.

They wanted to tackle this most tricky announcement before the much more devastating cuts due in the Comprehensive Spending Review (20 October).

Patrick O’Brien of the Daily Express defied logic by denouncing it as “the worst proposal since the poll tax”… But I don’t remember the Express being a big supporter of the anti-poll tax protests. It was, he insisted, a “kick in the teeth” for middle-class people everywhere.

You and I might be tempted to shrug and say this is one of those cuts that don’t matter so much — £40,000-plus earners can afford it. According to one poll, 83% of voters say the cut makes sense.

Far worse, you might reasonably conclude, is the proposal to cap all benefits for the unemployed and their families irrespective of their needs. That would — if it does not prove too expensive and too complicated to be implemented — be devastating for the worst-off.

Nonetheless, neutrality on the issue of child benefit cuts would be a big mistake.

Critics were right to point out that this was a measure of huge symbolic importance. It undermines an important long-term element of universality in the welfare system.

Somewhat more problematic is the critics’ point that such measures alienate the better-off from support for public services and a willingness to pay higher taxes.

Problematic because the Tories’ attempt to “draw in” the middle classes on other measures are either disingenuous or regressive. Disingenuous on the issue of the NHS, because their support for the privatisation and fragmentation of the NHS begun by Labour will make the NHS less and less “universal”. Regressive in the case of tax allowances for married couples. (It is surely time for couples who are “living in sin” to rise up!)

Nonetheless, the principle of universality is important for socialists. It bolsters our argument for driving out all private health care and all private education from social provision.

The child benefit cut is likely to be the “thin end of the wedge”. The universality of other benefits such as the winter fuel payments will also be ended.

The introduction of universal child benefits represented a recognition in society, won by centuries of working-class struggles, that there is a cost involved in bringing up children, and that a child’s “start in life” matters.

In this respect the so-called middle class “stay at home” parent living in a tidy suburb does have something in common with a single parent struggling on benefits or low wages on a council estate. They share responsibility for the life of a child.

Children are not responsible for their parents’ relative advantage or disadvantage in a system of wage-slavery. If child benefit is worth keeping — though it is not enough to end the poverty of children whose families are on the lowest incomes — it should benefit all children.

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