Time to reform child benefit

By Kate Green, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) Sixty years ago, the first universal benefits for families with children were introduced. Paid in most cases directly to the mother, from 6 August 1946 family allowances formed a key plank of the post-war welfare state.

The CPAG are pleased to be celebrating 60 years of support for children, but we believe the time is right to increase child benefit and pay it at the same rate for all children.

Our Make Child Benefit Count campaign is growing in strength and is now supported by 40 children's charities, pressure groups and trade unions including End Child Poverty, Save the Children, Citizens Advice, Barnardo's and the Pre-School Learning Alliance.

The beauty of child benefit is that it's simple, straightforward and effective. It 'follows the child' regardless of changing family circumstances or fluctuating incomes and gets straight through to the main parent or carer. There are no means tests or complicated forms to fill in and it only has to be claimed once in a child's lifetime. It reaches more children living in poverty than any other benefit or tax credit.

But the present system is unfair. At the moment the first or oldest child gets 17.45 per week, but this falls to just 11.70 for all other children. This makes no sense and fails to recognise the costs that second and subsequent children bring.

If the Government paid it at the same higher rate for all children, it would help larger families who are at a much greater risk of deprivation and lift 250,000 children out of poverty, on the road to ending child poverty once and for all.

In this 60th anniversary year of universal support, the time is right to invest further in all our children and make child benefit count.

You can sign up to support the campaign at www.makechildbenefitcount.org.