Chances are...

...that you've heard about David Cameron and Nick Clegg's plans to take away Child Trust Funds from our kids.

The Child Trust Fund (CTF) payments, which were set up as a one-off universal benefit to promote family savings for new born children, is now under threat from the Tory-Lib Dem government.

In Glasgow North around 3,000 vouchers to kick start a savings account have been issued to local children since 5 April 2007.

Families needed more help to save - but instead we've got a cut to the support they rely on. It's time to fight back. Let's make the politicians stop lecturing and start listening.

• Here's where you can find out how much your family will lose if the Child Trust Fund is axed - and what you can do about it.

Ann McKechin MP is supporting the Save Child Savings Alliance campaign in their calls on the Coalition Government to retain the core framework of the Child Trust Fund so that parents can still set up simple and tax efficient savings accounts for their newborn children after Government contributions cease in 2011. That way, it would also be cheap and easy for Government contributions to resume once the economy picks up and the public finances are in a healthier condition.

Both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats say they agree that the Child Trust Fund is a good way to help promote family saving, but have chosen to target the scheme as part of their programme of welfare cuts.

The Child Trust Fund is popular, successful, economical and simple. The operational structure is already in place, costs very little to maintain and the potential benefits to our children and our society are huge. 

Addressing the fiscal deficit achieves little if in doing so we sacrifice our fledgling savings culture, perpetuate the mistakes of the past and fail to make provision for the future.

• Click here to find out how much your family will lose if the Child Trust Fund is axed - and what you can do about it.

A broken promise on VAT

• Click here to sign my petition against the 20% VAT hike
  

VAT taxes the low paid and pensioners at exactly the same rate as the super-rich. 

Before the election, the Liberal Democrats campaigned against secret Tory plans to raise VAT.

But they have traded in their principles for places in David Cameron's Government.

The Treasury’s own figures show that the poorest are affected three times as much by VAT as the richest.

• Pensioners will be hardest hit by the VAT increase to 20% in the Government’s June Budget

• Pensioners have not been compensated for the extra costs with increases in tax allowances or benefits.

• No one voted for this unfair VAT increase. In the election, David Cameron said: "We have absolutely no plans to raise VAT."

• The Lib-Dems campaigned against a VAT increase and accused the Conservatives of hiding a secret VAT bombshell.

• The Tory-Lib-Dem unfair VAT increase to 20% is a broken promise that will hit the poorest hardest.

The Lib Dems are now hitting the weakest hardest, with their very own VAT tax bombshell.

Don't let them get away with it.  Say where you stand and sign our petition against the unfair VAT increase to 20% now.