Well why shouldn’t they apply for it?
If someone was going to give me a minimum of £1k per year for filling in a form I’d be glad to do so. I don’t particularly “need” it but I would not refuse it.
What has been lost in this debate is that prior to the introduction of Child Benefit those in employment and with children received an additional tax-free allowance via PAYE for each child. This was regardless of their earnings and nobody saw this as a benefit, “middle-class” or otherwise.
It was perceived that very often, where the father was the principle breadwinner the allowance for the child may not have been finding its way to support the child and was instead being spent in the pub. So was born Child Allowance and this could be paid directly to the mother, hence reducing the risk that it may be spent unwisely.
Now we seem to be saying that such an allowance is only needed for the less well off, implying that only those £45k or less incur the additional costs that child rearing brings to bear.
We are told that we are “all in it together” but it seems increasingly obvious to me that some of us are in it considerably more than others.
If we accept the fact that the costs of bringing up children should be borne in part by all taxpayers, the benefits of that largesse should be available to all those with children.