Child Benefit changes - fair or unfair?

I've been saying for over 10 or more years child benefit is wrong but then so are a lot of other benefits. Pensioners for example who have retired to a sunny climate are still allowed to claim for heating allowance even if they have a million or two stashed away. The thing is though children and pensioners always seems to be a sensitive subject to cover. When the welfare system was set up, it was set up to help those in living in poverty. Do we really still have poverty in this country? I'm not so sure, yes we have those who are out of work that find it tough to get by, but most will have state funded housing provided, 24hr health and dental care and a personal allowance given to them. 50 or 60 years ago none of this was available and people got by, and now people are dependent on benefits. Should someone earning an average wage in the UK be contributing to a household where the earnings exceed

I also think it's unfair it's been targeted at individuals, and not household incomes. You could have a single parent juggling a career and kids who just makes the threshold, versus a couple who earn more combined, but are entitled.

Totally agree that the definition of poverty is a bit skewed in this country, especially after seeing slums and genuine poverty in various countries.

In this age of recycling and worrying about waste, it's a shame we can't co-ordinate resources to allocate surplus food that will go to waste, from say Supermarkets, and that goes to people in need. Or clothes that are end of line and destined for some discount shop where no one will make any profit. This in my mind is what child benefit or a poverty benefit should be for. Even just giving food or clothing vouchers, not just handing over cash which can be spent on anything.

But it's a step in the right direction, like the scrapping of the non means tested healthy eating bonus for all pregnant mothers, and countless other non means tested and ill thought out benefits that GB Ltd can't afford and shouldn't have to provide

I'm all for vouchers, my only issues with them would be is (1) it would probably make the genuine people on benefits feel like third class citizens and years ago there were plenty of corner shops only to willing to trade milk tokens for cigarettes. You will also end up with a black market of people offering cash for less than the face value of any voucher.

Oh and while I'm thinking about it, all I've listened to on the radio today is about the married persons tax allowance. As the people that govern us seem to believe that it is far better for a child to be brought up within a married family lifestyle. Why should there be such a thing? I kept hearing arguements today that people who get married bring up children far better than those that do not get married, what utter rubbish. Many people nowadays decide to live together without the paperwork and manage to bring up a responsible law abiding family. A quarter of the population are now single and are happy to live that way, why should they be treated any differently? One in three marriages end in divorce, so will any tax benefits they've had for being married have to be paid back should they divorce? Same sex marriages are on the cards, will they be entitled to the same tax allowance? If not there will no doubt be forthcoming court cases, but it's impossible for them to have children biologically together, so this alone flips the whole thing on it's head....

I guess I'm old fashioned and like the idea of kids been brought up in a married environment, but most of may mates are now on their first divorce, and most of the kids seem to cope all right. Whether you should have tax breaks favouring a particular kind of living arrangement doesn't seem fair, but as long as I don't get divorced, then I'm happy with any marriage tax break

Watched newsnight last night and they were talking about the old Tax Credits scheme, which ended up with 9 out of 10 families with kids receiving some form of tax credit! I think this underlines the bloated state of the welfare state.

What started as a superb and noble idea, lifting people out of poverty and protecting the vulnerable has morphed into a massively expensive hand out system for the majority of the population. Within 2 or 3 generations we've gone from an independent self sufficient family culture, to a state dependant culture with demands and minimum expectations. I wonder if this has any bearing on perceived breakdown of traditional values, respect etc.

I hope after all this period of churn, protests, arguments and debates, we end up with a streamlined affordable benefit system, that protects those in genuine need, but starts to give the next generation a sense of independence, responsibility and finally breaks the cycle of dependence.

Aneurin Bevan believed that the Second World War was the opportunity for Great Britain to create a brand new society.
Often quoting Marx in that:

"The redeeming feature of war is that it puts a nation to the test. As exposure to the atmosphere reduces all mummies to instant dissolution, so war passes supreme judgment upon social systems that have outlived their vitality."

During the 1945 General Election Bevan told his audience:

"We have been the dreamers, we have been the sufferers, now we are the builders. We enter this campaign at this general election, not merely to get rid of the Tory majority. We want the complete political extinction of the Tory Party."

Bevan was a dreamer, he was a marxist but most of all he was family man with traditional family values. He wanted to support those in society who fell on hard times. The welfare state was designed and aimed at helping those who had put in and contributed to the sytem, it was never desigend to be the system.

"But" he failed in his desire to achieve the complete political extinction of the tory party. Chris Grayling is living proof of that!

Would so love polticians to be summat more than over-paid bums on seats ...