Children and families took centre stage during David Cameron's first conference as Prime Minister, with the decision to scrap child benefit payments for top earners dominating the four-day event.
During his keynote speech Cameron highlighted investment in early years, helping troubled families and ensuring children from poor backgrounds get to go to good schools as key priorities.
But as far as solid policies go, it was the impact of the child benefit shake-up, wider benefit reforms, and their impact on child poverty that proved the key talking points.
While the decision to scrap child benefit for top earners is badged as the party's attempt to be "fair" with spending cuts so those with the "broadest shoulders" feel more of the pain, the details of the proposal have thrown up some arguably unfair anomalies particularly for single parent families (see box, right).
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