Mr. Robert Watt:

In preparing for today's meeting, I came across the children's allowance, which is not the precursor for what we now know as child benefit, but a pay differential for married men with children. Their colleagues who were not blessed with children did not get this payment. It was first paid in 1925 and was extended in the 1970s by way of equality legislation to women. It is fascinating to look back at how individual aspects of allowances built up.