Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of calculating child benefit on household rather than individual income.

Child Benefit remains a universal benefit. The High Income Child Benefit Charge (HICBC) is a tax charge which applies to anyone with an income of over £50,000 who gets Child Benefit, or whose partner gets it. HICBC is calculated on an individual rather than a household basis, in line with other income tax policy.

Basing HICBC on household incomes would mean finding out the incomes of everyone in each of the 7.7 million households currently registered for Child Benefit. This would effectively introduce a new means test, which would be costly to administer and create burdens on the majority of families who receive Child Benefit. The Government decided that charging HICBC to those on higher incomes ensures that everyone makes a fair contribution, while those with the lowest incomes continue to be supported.