Fury as Angela Rayner demands half a million parents across UK are STRIPPED of child benefits
LABOUR's civil war deepened last night after it emerged Angela Rayner pushed to strip child benefit from hundreds of thousands of families.
The Deputy Prime Minister urged the Treasury to “claw back” payments from households where the highest earner makes between £50,000 and £80,000 — reversing a key Conservative tax break worth up to £1,300 a year.
The move would wipe out one of the most popular measures from Jeremy Hunt’s 2024 Budget, which raised the threshold at which families start losing child benefit.
Previously, households began to see their benefit cut if one parent earned over £50,000, with the payments completely withdrawn at £60,000.
Mr Hunt raised those limits to £60,000 and £80,000 respectively — allowing nearly half a million families to keep more of their entitlement.
But Rayner’s proposal, revealed in a document dated March, would roll that back - hitting teachers, junior doctors, police officers and others who had just been promised relief from rising bills.
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The system has long sparked fury among parents, because eligibility is based on individual salary, not joint household income.
That means a single earner on £60,000 with a stay-at-home partner loses the benefit — while a couple each earning £49,000 still qualify in full.
Mr Hunt had also launched a review into fixing this anomaly by assessing total household earnings instead — but Labour has since quietly dropped that plan.
The ex-Tory Chancellor said: “This may look like a relatively minor budget measure but was one of the most popular things we did because it helped striving middle-class families struggling with childcare costs.
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“Abandoning them would finally confirm that far from being a New Labour government, this is a traditional anti-aspiration Old Labour government.”
The leaked memo, published by The Telegraph, revealed Ms Rayner also suggested broader tax hikes and benefit cuts in a bold bid to fill Treasury coffers.
It marks a direct challenge to Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who is already reeling from a bruising U-turn on plans to axe the winter fuel allowance for wealthier pensioners.
And it is fuelling talk of a Cabinet rift between Labour’s Left and more cautious centrists.
Allies of Reeves were quick to stress last night that she alone sets tax and spend policy, and that the ideas in the memo are not government plans.
But Left-wing MPs have seized on the document, urging Sir Keir Starmer to go even further — including scrapping the two-child benefit cap and hiking taxes on savings.
How to claim Child Benefit
Child benefit is worth up to £1,331 a year for your first or only child and up to £881 a year for additional children.
This works out at £102.40 every four weeks or £25.60 a week for your first child and £67.80 every 4 weeks or £16.95 a week for their siblings.
There is no limit on the number of children that can be claimed for.
Applying is straightforward and can be done in minutes at gov.uk or through the HMRC app.
Parents with a newborn baby should make a claim online as soon as possible and could then receive their first payment in as little as three days.
You can also backdate claims for up to three months.
Parents can make a claim and then choose to opt out of receiving Child Benefit payments can still receive National Insurance credits if one parent is not working.
National Insurance credits build up your entitlement to the state pension.