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Finance (No. 2) Bill

On child benefit, I did not argue that it was not inappropriate for the burdens of deficit reduction to be widely shared; I argued that the Government’s policy will not work. It has not been thought through. It is incompatible with the structure of child benefit as it is paid today. Perhaps the Minister would like to take my example of a top-rate-paying taxpayer who, on the death of her husband, moves in with a daughter who is receiving child benefit. Is that grandmother going to be fined by the Chancellor or will her daughter lose her child benefit? I do not think that is very family friendly. Do you?