Can the Coalition be trusted on families?

Nick Clegg was today set to launch the Coalition Government's new 'Childhood and Families Task Force', which will give grandparents legal rights to see children when couples split.

Nick Clegg was today set to launch the Coalition Government’s new ‘Childhood and Families Task Force’, to great fanfare in the right-wing papers, the deputy prime minister even writing a column in this morning’s Mail headlined “Why it’s time for families to come first”. The main measure will be to give grandparents increased legal rights to see children when couples split.

Other reforms include new rights for flexible parental leave; a crackdown on “irresponsible” advertising and marketing aimed at children; rights to respite care for parents with disabled children; new powers for local communities to create and protect playgrounds and playing fields; and the scaling back of child tax credits in favour of income tax breaks.

In April, Left Foot Forward examined Tory policy on families in our report “Fami-lies: Why you can’t trust the Tories”, in which we explained how cutting child tax credits would affect many families on lower incomes, pointing out that:

“Calculations carried out by the Institute for Public Policy Research’s tax/benefit calculator show that the [child tax credit] policy would only save £65 million assuming full take-up of the family component. If take up was 73 per cent, the relevant HMRC figure in 2005-06, the total saving would fall to £47.5 million…

“And although the Conservatives have had a number of chances to outline how else they hope to gain £400 million from cutting tax credits, the public is still in the dark.

In March, Left Foot Forward published a report – “Think Again Nick – Why spending £17 billion to raise tax thresholds would not help the poorest” – looking at the other half of the CTC/tax breaks equation, which would be deeply regressive.

The analysis showed that:

The measure would do nothing to help the very poorest, who don’t have income large enough to pay tax;

• Only around £1 billion of the £17 billion cost (6 per cent) actually goes toward the stated aim of lifting low-income households out of tax;

• Households in the second richest decile would gain on average four times the amount than those in the poorest decile; and

• The policy would increase socially damaging inequalities between the bottom and middle.

Earlier today, shadow schools secretary Ed Balls criticised the coalition’s policies on children and families, describing Mr Clegg’s announcement as “a smokescreen”, diverting attention from cuts to local services which “make a difference to the lives of children and young people”.

He added:

“This government can have no credibility on improving the life chances of children and families when they are cutting child trust funds, youth jobs, university places, free school meals for poorer families, and successful programmes to tackle teenage pregnancy and youth crime. And this is before proposals to cut child benefit and school breakfast clubs.

“The fact they’ve abolished the post of Secretary of State for Children tells you everything about the priorities of this new government. A serious approach to improving the life chances of children and families in our country would be to continue with the successful reforms in Labour’s Children’s Plan which had widespread support but have now been torn up.”

12 Responses to “Can the Coalition be trusted on families?”

  1. House Of Twits

    RT @leftfootfwd Can the Coalition be trusted on families? http://bit.ly/9fHrbv

  2. Mr. Sensible

    Not to mention the regressive proposal to give tax breaks to Married Couples. At the same time as we’re supposed to be cutting the deficit for goodness sake!

    Some of this makes sense, such as giving more rights to Grandparents, and the announcement about more respite care would be a bit more credible if Tory Notts County Council wasn’t proposing to close 1 of the County’s centres.

    But doing things like scrapping Child Trust Funds, Child Benefit, free School Meals, in favour of increasing the threshold of Income Tax which, as you have said Shamik will not help the poorest, will not help families.

  3. winston k moss

    again we witness take from the needy and give to the already have’s.THIS IS NOT THE WAY FOR A SO CALLED (unelected)DEMOCRATIC society should treat it’s citizens.we are just lurching from left to right and in the middle is all the waste of OUR money,changing the game plan is just side stepping the real issues which is the elite make the rules(ILLUMANTI)for their own goals not the ordinary,trusting(gullible)people.FARCE COMES TO MY MIND

  4. Jenni Jackson

    RT @leftfootfwd: Can the Coalition be trusted on families? http://bit.ly/9fHrbv

  5. Jacquie Martin

    Mr Sensible

    Nice to see we’re back on track.

    The Con-Lib Dems are a party of the middle clases (upper and lower). So, all their financial measures will be aimed at those same middle classes. People who fall below the financial criteria determining middle class, and so demanded by these parties to belong, will be left to get on with it. And so will society.

    I notice Nick Clegg, who even in this short time must have become something of a figure of ridicule, is trying to emulate the children in the photo. Nice to see those media meddlers we’re paying for are working well for him.

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