Osborne to cut child benefit

George Osborne will tell the Conservative Party conference today that child benefit will be stopped for all higher-rate taxpayers from 2013.

In a high profile speech on the economy this morning, the chancellor is expected to say that the move would raise around £1bn and help pay for the planned reforms of the welfare system.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Osborne said that removing the benefit from those who earned the most was the "simplest" way of doing it.

"I didn't want to introduce a complex means tested child benefit system," he said.

"If we were in a different economic situation then i wouldn't want to be doing this."

And echoing the theme of his last conference speech, Osborne said that he wanted to show that "we are all in this together" and that all parts of society made a contribution.

"I couldn't really justify taxing someone on £20,000 in order to pay the child befit of someone who earns £50,000," he said.

The chancellor also told the BBC that the coalition had "moved Britain out of the financial danger zone" since its election.

"We have given the county a plan that the rest of the world has confidence in," he said.

"The danger zone that we were in in May, we would return to if we abandoned the Budget plan I set out."

And he said that he hoped the government would one day be able to reverse some of the austerity measures it is putting in place.

"I hope that once we have got through this period we will be able to put more money in public services," he said.

"But there is a very simple rule about debts this size, the longer you leave it the worse it gets."

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