New taxation laws were introduced today which will alter the thresholds that many families are taxed at but also at which they receive benefits. It's been on my mind a lot today for my own family situation having two young children but also my wider network, the people around me in my daughters class at school or nursery, the children and families I have contact with through my work in education and parents everywhere who are trying to make ends meet and raise their children in the best way possible.
There are three major areas of concern to me:
- I believe that most cuts in benefits, e.g. child benefit and tax credits affect predominately women and children and will affect the standard and quality of life for these groups most.
- The changes will potentially stigmatise any kind of benefit/credit making hard working families feeling the pinch less likely to claim even when they are eligible
- Policy wise: the target to eradicate child poverty by 2020 seems to be sidelined by successive governments when dealing with fiscal matters affecting families
How many women and children proportionately are making the decisions? Many women I know are battling hard to have choices about their lives even in the post-feminist world we live. On my own part, although I believe that the rights of women are central to a democratic soceity, in some ways we continue to enslave women by the opposites, that is, equality is not about being exactly the same, it is about having the same potential and the right to make a choice. In my opinion women (and men) should have the right to work, equal rights to career progression, equal rights to pay and benefits for the equivalent job but they should also have the option to raise their children if they choose to, take some time out of work without financial penalty, be encouraged and supported in the first place when they choose to have a family and live in a society that values and respects the biological differences between male and female human beings.
Child Benefit is one area that I have never felt was a bad 'benefit' to be claiming, not that other benefits are bad but when through working hard, many families sit on the threshold or cut off points of other taxation and benefits policy, the view that every 'child' was entitled to that benefit was positive, the child focused element of the benefit not tax or earnings related made it palatable across the board, it's not emotive, person specific rather than subjective judgment on circumstance (and yes, I do accept the cost of that) children from every walk of life, every background, every parental circumstance got one thing that was exactly the same, one moment where government policy was largely irrelevant and for a brief moment they were seen as and treated as the same, neither rich or poor, black or white, religious or not, academic or not from the North or the South, no none of these, just children. Personally I am desperately sad this model has gone and now parental income, class, education, opportunity even equality can evade our children at the most basic level. I wrote to my MP on this very matter a few months ago and was disappointed by the response that I felt only understood a spreadsheet showing a negative when I long for a way of thinking that centres on real people, real lives.
The unfairness of applying one level to benefit classification nationally is obvious £42-43k in London compared with £42-43k in parts of the North of England is almost like dealing with a different currency, but how do we make it fair? I don't know the answer and remember children are central here, what are the life chances of children groing up in each of the English regions and in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, they have to be considered alongside financial changes .
Finally what are the implications of todays changes on the commitments to eradicate child poverty by 2020? Some children are going to be worse off, whether this puts them into a technically 'impoverished category' remains to be seen but a taxation system which is purley based on parental income takes no account of background, family levels of debt, compassion, priorities, self esteem. It cannot be the only way, the terms are too limited We must learn to think more widely, more collaboratively, we must put children at the heart of policy not pound signs we must learn that parental income is not the only measure of wealth and indeed can completely obscure the picture and take the long term view.
After pondering all this I am still left confused and grateful to not be a politicial in the troubling times we live in, it is hard to make decisions. I am also left worried though, worried for the fututre of my own children and worried for all those families who will suffer, who may have to make sacrifices, who are but a statistic, a saving and yet they are not only this, families grow children and children are our future.
