Tories
Propose Tax Break For Married Couples
Story by Peter
Griffiths
Edited by GEKA from G.D.M.
LONDON (Reuters) - Married
couples would
get a tax break worth 80 pounds a month under Conservative proposals
that seek to challenge Prime Minister Gordon Brown on family values, a
enior Tory said on Tuesday.
Former Conservative leader
Iain Duncan Smith said that
rewarding married couples through the tax system was at the heart of
the party's campaign to "fix Britain's broken society".
"What we are saying is that
the system at the moment is
jigged against married couples and we want to set that right," he told
GMTV.
Duncan Smith, chairman of a
Tory group probing social
problems, will publish a report on Tuesday that will identify five
"paths to poverty" -- family breakdown, personal debt, addiction,
failed education and unemployment.
His group's final report,
Breakthrough Britain, will
recommend nearly 200 ways to tackle social problems.
Speaking ahead of the
report's release, Conservative
leader David Cameron said there needed to be a "big cultural change" in
favour of marriage.
"I think it is absolutely
the big question, the big
argument of our times," he said. "Kids do best if mum and dad are there
to look after them."
After 10 years out of power,
the Tories have tried to
draw electoral battle lines with Labour over social issues such as
crime, drugs and debt.
Labour has repeatedly
rejected Conservative claims that
society is "broken", pointing to record economic growth, falling crime
rates and improving school results.
Labour's Cabinet Office
minister Ed Miliband said it
would be wrong to help only married couples rather than all parents.
"The right thing to do is to
support children and not
discriminate against some children," he told BBC radio.
In a speech on Monday, Brown
said the government should
support "all parents with children and not just some".
The Liberal Democrats said
the proposals offered "19th
century solutions to 21st century problems".
"This is yet another example
of the Tory policy vacuum,"
said David Laws, spokesman on children, schools and families.
"The
emphasis on passing all the problems back to
the charitable and voluntary sector, and bringing back marriage tax
breaks, sounds like a great leap backwards, rather than a serious
strategy for the future."
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