Child Benefit (No. 2)

EDM number 806 in 1995-96, proposed by James Pawsey on 29/04/1996.

That this House condemns Opposition plans to withdraw child benefit from young people in further education on their sixteenth birthday to fund further public spending; notes that this would cut the income of a family with one child in further education by ú560 a year, equivalent to a rise of five pence in the basic rate of income tax for a family on average earnings; recognises that child benefit is in origin a tax rebate and to remove it without reducing taxes, as Labour plan, would make the United Kingdom the only country in the European Union which did not recognise in either the tax or benefit systems the cost of raising children; welcomes the rise in further education brought about by the Government, so that even of the children of unskilled parents, over half now remain in further education at 16 years compared with only 20 per cent. under the last Labour Government; and congratulates the Government on fulfilling its manifesto pledge to pay child benefit for all children and to uprate it in line with inflation.

This motion has been signed by a total of 73 MPs, 1 of these signatures have been withdrawn.