Benefits Uprating

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller) brought forward proposals only this week to make child maintenance more effective, because, as the hon. Lady rightly says, getting child maintenance paid is crucial. We believe that far too little is paid and the cost of collecting it is disproportionate to what we receive, so we need an efficient child maintenance system, and that is what we propose to bring forward.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that rather than trapping more low-paid families in the complicated web of means-tested benefits, which has done so much damage already, taking them out of tax altogether is by far the better approach?

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend is quite right that we have already taken, I think, just over 1 million families or individuals out of tax. We have a long-term goal of a £10,000 tax-free allowance, which would take out millions more, but what is often not understood is that couples in which both members go out to work to make ends meet get twice as much benefit. Each benefits from the personal tax allowance increase, so it helps precisely those most hard-pressed families in which both parents work all hours to keep their family going.