Labour blasts Tory tax break plans for married couples

Schools Secretary Ed Balls laid into David Cameron’s pledge to recognise marriage financially, warning it would create a tier of “second class” families that risked stigmatising children.

Extra cash for the Relate service and a duty on public services to prioritise families were reported to be among measures to be promised by ministers in a Green Paper next week.

It will also include efforts to give more support to fathers, including a 10-page “New Dad’s Guide” and new guidance to midwives on how to better engage with fathers.

As Labour drew battle lines with the Opposition on the issue, Mr Balls said it was vital for the state to recognise that good families came “in all shapes and sizes”.

“The idea of trying to socially engineer family life through a tax policy which is designed to say that some types of families are first class, and other types of families are second class and should be financially disadvantaged, is hugely expensive and unfair,” he said.

“The idea that you say to children who only have one parent because of bereavement or domestic violence, or to kids who have two parents, both of whom are divorced and who have a new family but don’t want to or can’t remarry that somehow you’re not as good as another type of family is unfair.

“It could stigmatise children and I don’t think that’s right. I don’t think children should be told they are second-class kids because of things which have happened through no fault of their own or unavoidable reasons.”

Mr Balls, the husband of Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper, said he believed marriage remained “the best way to bring up children” but it was wrong to penalise other family units.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg also said a marriage tax break was an expensive “bribe”.

“David Cameron is plain wrong, totally wrong, to say that we, the country, should spend billions of pounds providing a tax bribe for people simply to hold up a marriage certificate,” he said. “It is immensely unfair. What does it mean for the poor woman who has been left by some philandering husband who goes on to another marriage and gets the tax break and she doesn’t.”

The Liberal Democrats propose allowing mothers and fathers to share 19 months of parental leave in a bid to get fathers more involved in children’s early development.