In what is expected to be his last Budget, Chancellor Gordon Brownincreased the child element of the child tax credit by 150 andpromised increases in child benefit from April 2009. The Treasury saysthe measures will help 200,000 children escape poverty, an estimatesupported by economics think-tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Brown also announced 340m-a-year for the Department for Educationand Skills by 2010/11 to support improvements in schools and children'sservices.
Anne Longfield, chief executive of the charity 4Children, said theBudget proved that Brown was "the children's Chancellor". Kate Green,chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, described the Budgetas an "important step towards halving child poverty by 2010".
But Brown's decision to scrap the 10 per cent income tax band and toincrease the rate that tax credits are reduced by as families' incomeincreases was criticised. Jon Strelitz, Save the Children's childpoverty adviser, said: "The loss of the 10 per cent tax band and thehigher withdrawal rate on tax credits will slow progress on childpoverty."
David Laws MP, the Liberal Democrats' work and pensions spokesman, alsoattacked Brown. "Last week's Budget won't even make up for the 300,000children the Government missed its 2005 child poverty target by. Simplyploughing more money into a tax credit system mired in chaos is not theway to eradicate child poverty. Brown must realise that combating childpoverty through tax credits has run its course."
But a spokesman for the Child Poverty Action Group played down theeffects of increasing the tax credit withdrawal rate. "The increase inthe tax credit withdrawal rate is not simply a cut, as it is being madewithin an overall increase in tax credits," he said.
- See Analysis, p12; See Leader, p15.
