We will lose child benefit - my husband is a higher-rate tax payer, and I earn barely enough to be taxed, so can probably be classed as a stay-at-home parent. I know there are people who earn more than us who will still get the benefit when we lose out, and it is anomalous, but there are anomalies in any system, and this is the cheapest and easiest way to implement this change.

We are in desperate times, and I would much rather I lost my child benefit that other families sink into poverty. And I'm not going to cry about other people keeping the benefit. It's not relevant to me. What matters is: can I afford to lose it? If the answer is yes (which it is) I'm happy to give it up.

I find the other cuts, the capping of benefits regardless of the number of children, somewhat alarming. Of course we can't keep subsiding people who have large families assuming the state will support them. But the majority of people on benefits are there because some catastrophe has befallen them, and most single parents don't start out that way.