Clause 11 - Maximum rate
Tax Credits Bill
4:15 pm
Professor Steve Webb (Northavon, Liberal Democrat)
The Minister argued that there were two reasons not to give equivalent support to a two-parent family and a one-parent family. Work incentives were essentially the issues involved. If the working tax credit were not about children but about adults, such arguments would not be so strong. If there is a problem with child care incentives, we should deal with that under a child care tax credit and other mechanisms. However, if it concerns poverty, the argument about the inequality between a one-parent family and a two-parent family is much less acute in the case of childless families. The case for penalising a two-parent family, not a one-parent family, seems harder to make in light of childless families.
The Minister said that income support, housing benefit and working tax credit constituted one benefit, while measures for children were another benefit. Well, if housing benefit, income support and working tax credit are of a kind, and housing benefit and income support recognise second adults, why is working tax credit not included? If she is categorising such benefits as those that support adults and two out of three of them give something with which to feed the extra mouth, why should not the system under the Bill do the same? I cannot see the reason for such a distinction.