Can the Coalition be trusted on families?

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.”