Ed Balls has outlined his tough stance on the economy in his speech at the Labour Party conference in Manchester – with child benefits bearing the brunt of his focus.
He expanded on his plans to cap child benefits if Labour is voted into Parliament next year and emphasised that if the £75billion deficit is to be cleared ‘tough choices’ have to be made.
The flagship policy has been criticised by charity The Children’s Society who claim that, in capping child benefits to ensure families do not suffer, the party have created ‘even more necessary hardships’.
A spokesperson for the charity told MM: “Labour’s announcement on plans to cap child benefit comes after repeated squeezes on this bedrock of the family budget. It represents a major real-term cut in support to 13million children.
“Policy is about making choices and the Shadow Chancellor has made a choice — to look for savings by cutting help for children.
“Child benefit has already been frozen from 2010 and then increased by just 1% this year falling well below rising prices. Now this proposal would compound that loss, seeing average families facing a £400 cut in child benefit per year by 2017.
“We urge the Shadow Chancellor to reconsider so that children and their already struggling families do not suffer even more unnecessary hardship.”
Mr Balls revealed to supporters that a 1% cap on rises in help for parents will save the taxpayer £400 million over five years.
The opposition politician said in interviews ahead of the party conference: “People need to know that the next Labour government will make difficult decisions to get the deficit down and do so in a fair way.
“I would not be being straight with your viewers if I did not say that with a deficit of £75billion a Labour chancellor will have to make tough choices.”
In a bid to temper the squeeze, Mr Balls declared that ministers’ pay would be cut by 5% and then frozen until the party is able to ‘balance the books’.
Under austerity measures introduced by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, child benefit was frozen from 2010 to this year. It went up by 1% in April and is due to rise by the same amount in 2015/16.
Earlier in the year, MM found that Manchester was home to hot spots for child poverty in the country and that one-in-five boys born in the city centre today wouldn’t make it to retirement age.
Rob Jackson, Area Manager for Manchester, said at the time: “There are many deep-rooted issues within Greater Manchester which provides a challenge to us all.
“There are 150,000 children living in poverty in Greater Manchester – that’s only slightly less than the entire population of Bury.
“Greater Manchester has had a lot of regeneration, a lot of change, but perhaps some of that is physical and I think there is recognition now that we need to do more to help families to change their lives.
Under Mr Balls’ new plans, it is not just child benefits that will be capped but also maternity pay and jobseeker’s allowance.
He said: “To show that we have learned from our time in government that we will make the tough decisions, we need to get the deficit down and that we can change our economy and make it work for working people.”
“I want to see child benefit rising again in line with inflation in the next parliament – but we will not spend money we cannot afford.”
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