by political editor Paul Francis

The government has been urged to re-think its plans to cut child benefit by Kent MP Mark Reckless, who has warned it has become a ‘toxic’ policy.

The Rochester and Strood MP said the plan to withdraw benefit from households in which one or more taxpayers earn more than £45,000 was unfair and one he would find it difficult to support.

Writing in his blog, Mr Reckless warned the government was ‘toxic’ and that ‘a very significant number of Conservative backbenchers’ were sufficiently concerned that they were likely to vote against the policy.

He said: "Ministers cannot answer colleagues who question them about the sheer unfairness of one family with a single earner on £45,000 losing their child benefit, while a family with two earners, each earning around £40,000, get to keep their child benefit.

"Certainly, I don’t feel that I am currently able to give constituents a satisfactory answer as to how this is fair, particularly when we continue to pay child benefit to many thousands of children in EU countries such as Poland and Lithuania, where costs are much lower, even when they have never set foot in the UK."

The issue was ‘particularly toxic’ for MPs who were keen to see the Conservatives promote marriage and traditional family values, he added. "However, the policy is also objectionable for those who want the tax system to be neutral between personal choices, since it clobbers single earner householders, most usually with a stay-at-home Mum, relative to dual-earner couples."

The benefit is worth £20.30 a week for the first child and £13.40 each for every sibling. Under the government’s plans, as many as 1.8m families where a parent earns more than £42,725 would lose out.

Mr Reckless said he would find it hard to support the changes as they stood, principally because of their unfairness and that many backbenchers shared his reservations.

The Prime Minister has indicated the policy may be re-examined but to date, no official steps have been made to change the proposals.