SIR – The decision to deny child benefit where at least one parent is earning over £60,000 per year should not be mistaken for a sense of fairness.
It is nothing of the sort. It is an attempt to portray the abolition of universal benefits as some great reform that achieves fairness.
Why, the Tories and LibDems ask, should wealthy parents and pensioners receive child benefit, free TV licences, bus passes and winter fuel allowances?
As an illustration, Nick Clegg did not think it right that the state should pay for Sir Alan Sugar’s bus pass.
Sir Alan replied: “Idiot. I haven’t got one. Even if I did have a bus pass, I’ve personally paid millions in tax.”
If the Government really want the broadest shoulders to bear the biggest burden, taking a few benefits off a small number of rich parents and pensioners in the name of fairness does not square with reducing the top level of income tax from 50 per cent to 45 per cent.
I agree with Sir Alan Sugar.
If you have paid the tax, you should have the benefits like everyone else.
If the Government want to relieve the rich of money, they should do it through the tax system, not by driving a wedge between people.
Universal benefits are, after all, the clearest possible expression of being “all in it together”.
PETER NIELSEN
Worcester
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