‘In a year or two, we’ll be back in the same place’

Mother welcomes help, but says relief will be short-lived

Rosie Wilkins, 35, runs her own business and has two children, aged 10 and three. She said her household had been right at the threshold of having to repay the full benefit charge.

“We were at the point of being about to lose child benefit altogether.

“We are now right at the bottom of the bracket,” she said.

“For us, in our case, it is a short term positive, because as soon as that income creeps up we will be back where we started.” Ms Wilkins said that the delay in considering the charge at a household level, rather than looking at the higherearning parent, was a problem.

“The biggest thing for me is that it is still not based on overall household income and that’s always where my issue lies. I think a lot of families will just find themselves in a year or two years, right back in the same place.”

The mother-oftwo said that she didn’t know about the charge until she had her children, and that she thought parents weren’t told about it enough.

“I wasn’t even aware that there was a high-income charge until we hit it, and someone at my partner’s work brought it up. When you have a baby, they just give you the paperwork.”

She said: “If we do have a change of government and it gets more complicated again, I do worry for the majority of parents who just don’t seem to know.”

Ms Wilkins said childcare policy was a vote-winning issue for her, but that she thought the reforms announced yesterday might not help parents as much as they need.

“It just makes such a big impact on working parents. As a working parent, it’s definitely on my radar. It’s definitely a voting matter for me.”