'WELFARE CUTS WILL ENCOURAGE THE POOR TO BREED' !!!!!!!!!!

[Daanyeer]

'Welfare cuts will only encourage the poor to breed': Outrage at new Tory peer's outburst over child benefits


By Daily Mail Reporter
25th November 2010


Peer claims cuts will put middle classes off children

One of David Cameron's new Tory peers has been forced to apologise today after he criticised the Government's child benefit cuts - saying they gave the poor more of an incentive to have children than the better-off.
Former party vice-chairman Howard Flight caused outrage after he said that Chancellor George Osborne’s plan to strip child benefit from higher earners was an attack on the middle classes.
'We’re going to have a system where the middle classes are discouraged from breeding because it’s jolly expensive, but for those on benefit there is every incentive,' he said.

'Well that’s not very sensible', he told the London Evening Standard.
Mr Flight said he wanted to withdraw the comments minutes after Prime Minister David Cameron said he expected him to say sorry and disagreed with his stance.

'I apologise unreservedly for any offence caused and would like to withdraw the remarks', he said in a statement issued by the party.
Mr Cameron announced only last week that Mr Flight - who was sacked as an MP in 2005 for outspoken comments about spending cuts - would be given a seat in the Lords.
Asked if he would now prevent him taking his place in the upper house, the Prime Minister said: 'I don't agree with what he said and I am sure that he will want to apologise for what he has said, and I think we can probably leave it at that.'
Speaking to the BBC in the immediate aftermath of the interview's publication, Mr Flight insisted his reported comments were 'out of context', adding: 'I really have nothing more to say.'
But soon afterwards, Mr Cameron, at a Downing Street press conference alongside Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, was challenged to say whether he would reverse the peerage award.
Within minutes, Mr Flight issued his apology.
The ex-MP was forced to resign as vice-chairman after being taped before the 2005 general election suggesting the Tories had secret spending cut plans.
Liberal Democrat MP Bob Russell said: 'His comments are offensive and unacceptable. They are not appropriate for the 21st Century, especially when the gap between rich and poor is growing and when the poorest still have lower life expectancies.'
Labour called them 'shameful' and said they reflected badly on the Prime Minister’s judgment for appointing him to the Lords five days ago.


Mr Flight's resignation comes less than a week after Mr Cameron’s enterprise tsar Lord Young was forced to quit after claiming that people had ‘never had it so good’.
Mr Flight’s ennoblement, in a list of 54 new peers, more than half of them Conservatives, was a surprise resurrection for an outspoken Right-winger who was axed as a Tory MP by Michael Howard in 2005 for making ill-judged comments in a speech.
He suggested that Mr Cameron had brought him back in recognition that his removal at that time was wrong.
Mr Flight said he suspected the influence of Lib Dems was behind the decision to take child benefit from people earning more than £43,000, costing a family of two £1,752 a year.

He also broke ranks with the coalition by criticising the plan to treble university fees. 'Two of my nieces and nephews, both of them very bright, gave up university half way through because they didn’t want the financial burden,' he said.
An avowed Euro-sceptic, he said he was suspicious of the influence wielded by Nick Clegg, who he said was 'too much of a committed European'.
On his own political come-back, he said that Mr Cameron had privately hinted that the peerage was a tacit admission that Mr Howard was wrong to have dumped him as an MP five years ago.
Mr Flight, 62, was MP for Arundel & South Downs but was axed after making a speech before the 2005 election that implied the party might make harsher spending cuts than it admitted in public.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Douglas Alexander said: 'These shameful but revealing comments cast serious doubt over David Cameron's judgment in personally appointing Howard Flight to the House of Lords only a few days ago.

'Last week one of the Prime Minister's senior advisers told us we'd never had it so good and now his latest hand-picked peer comes out with these comments.'

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: 'Howard Flight has shown himself to be an insensitive throwback to the worst of 1980s politics within days of being made a peer by the Prime Minister.
'This is exactly the kind of remark that leads to political parties being thought of as nasty, and shows just how shockingly out of touch with the lives of ordinary low and middle-income people some supporters of this Government can be.'
Chancellor George Osborne sparked widespread anger last month when he said households with a higher-rate taxpayer would see child benefit payments axed from 2013.
The state help - currently paid universally to all families - is worth £1,000 a year for those with one child and £2,500 a year for those with three.
Critics say the cut, designed to save the taxpayer £2.5 billion a year, is unfair as some single-earner households will lose out while some with two incomes earning far more in total will not.
Around 1.5 million families will be affected.



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