(Increase of Family Allowances and Related Amendments.)

Part of Orders of the Day — Family Allowances and National Insurance Bill – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 29 November 1967.

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Photo of Mr Charles Loughlin Mr Charles Loughlin , Gloucestershire West 12:00, 29 November 1967

I would not be dogmatic about this. It does not neces- sarily follow in this context that a family with more children, taking the balance between the household's expenditure and its income, needs a greater amount of money because the offsets are part of a package. Some work has been done on this. Frankly, it is not very clear. I appreciate that we are reducing the benefit for the fourth and fifth child by a greater amount than we are for the second and third child. The three-child family gets the additional benefit for the first child of 3s. We have tried to deal with this situation on the basis of the complementary nature of the benefits. We have done it with a degree of equity. I hope that in the light of this explanation the Amendment will be withdrawn.