Hear Say: A simple solution to child benefit?

Michelle Hurst’s hearsay column is one of the most popular in the Grimsby Telegraph, running every Wednesday.

Here is a snippet of what she has to say today - more in today Telegraph.

CHILD benefit is the hot topic this week as new rules came into force which mean families with one parent with a taxable income of more than £50,000 will lose some of the benefit, and it will be withdrawn entirely if one parent earns above £60,000.

All sorts of issues are being debated.

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Like why it is that if both parents earn £49,000 each, they won’t be affected, but if one parent in another couple earns £50,000+ and the other parent nothing, they will.

It’s whether the plan to save £1.5 billion is fair or not.

On the one hand, shouldn’t families on higher wages make a contribution to cut the country’s deficit?

And isn’t it always those who are just over the threshold who miss out the most, and is it really fair that those who put the most into the tax system get hit the hardest?

On the other, does it remove the issue of some women having babies just for the child benefit?

Of course, much of the debates have centred around how it does nothing to stop immigrants sending child benefit cash back to their home country and out of the UK coffers.

Isn’t there a simple solution to both of these issues – replace child benefit with grocery vouchers. Then the money goes on what it is intended for and remains in the UK. Or is that just too simple?