Treasury written question – answered am ar 27 Chwefror 2024.
Angela Crawley
Scottish National Party, Lanark and Hamilton East
To ask the Chancellor of the exchequer, whether he has had discussions with Cabinet colleagues on the potential merits of introducing changes to the child benefit system.
Angela Crawley
Scottish National Party, Lanark and Hamilton East
To ask the Chancellor of the exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the child benefit allowance to £50 a week for all children.
Nigel Huddleston
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury
Child Benefit ensures families receive support for the additional costs they face in raising a child. 7.7m million families across the UK claim Child Benefit.
To ensure that the Child Benefit payments retain their value, they will be increased in line with last September’s CPI at 6.7% from April 2024.
Further support for children from low-income households is also provided through the child element of Universal Credit and Child Tax Credit, which will be uprated in line with CPI.
The Government also offers a broader range of support for parents to help with childcare, including financial support with childcare through Tax-Free Childcare.
As with all Government policy, Child Benefit is kept under regular review.
Yes1 person thinks so
No1 person thinks not
Would you like to ask a question like this yourself? Use our Freedom of Information site.
The chancellor of the exchequer is the government's chief financial minister and as such is responsible for raising government revenue through taxation or borrowing and for controlling overall government spending.
The chancellor's plans for the economy are delivered to the House of Commons every year in the Budget speech.
The chancellor is the most senior figure at the Treasury, even though the prime minister holds an additional title of 'First Lord of the Treasury'. He normally resides at Number 11 Downing Street.
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
