Dr. Karina Doorley:

The Chairman is right that, in nominal terms, the child benefit payment has been fixed for many years. The result of that, from a gender perspective, is that over the course of the financial crisis, the incomes of women, particularly lone parents, suffered more than the incomes of men. There are pros and cons to child benefit. It is a universal payment, which means it is not as targeted as other welfare measures. My view is that it is still a very important payment. It is a reasonable anti-poverty tool, going on the work we did earlier this year, but increases to qualified child payments are better at tackling poverty. However, I think there is still a role for child benefit in the entire tax and welfare system. There is also evidence that because child benefit is typically paid to the mother, it is more likely to be spent on the child than if it were divided between the mother and father or paid to the father.

In the current context of discussions around whether increasing child benefit at the moment is a good idea, it comes under the heading of the universal payments that represent a higher proportion of disposable income for low-income households than for higher-income households. Of course, a lot of the expenditure on child benefit goes to higher-income households, but it has the advantage of being relatively easy to administer and, therefore, easy to increase as well. The policy over the past few years has seemed to be to freeze the child benefit payment and instead focus on increases to qualified children, which are the increases that go along with core benefits paid to one or other parent. This is a good, targeted way to reduce the poverty rates of households with children, which are more likely to be in poverty than any other types of households. Children in this country are more likely to be in poverty than working-age or elderly households. There is a balance to be struck between child benefit, which is universal and easy to get out to people if needs be, and the increases for qualified children, which provide more targeted support to low-income families.