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By Stuart White
The Child Trust Fund introduced what generations of Liberals aspired to do: ensure that every citizen has some property of their own, but by indicating that the Liberal Democrats want to scrap it, Nick Clegg is going against the key part of his party's commitment to social mobility.
Since the government introduced Child Trust Funds (CTF) in 2004 every child receives a grant at birth
which accumulates as they grow up. The family can make additional contributions,
and there are further government payments at later ages. When the first generation
of fund-holders comes of age in 2020, every individual will have at least some
property to call their own. Labour continues to support the policy. So do the
Conservatives.
Yet the Liberal Democrats fought the last general election
pledged to abolish it. Under Nick Clegg, this remains the party’s policy. The Liberal Democrats argue that the
money used to fund the CTF should instead be spent on education. But there are
many ways to fund extra education spending. For example, the Liberal Democrats
could offer less generous tax cuts. The CTF is the first ever policy to put
assets directly into the hands of all
members of a generation, including those from poorer homes. Surely there are
many other ways of funding decent education spending than by scrapping this innovative
means of promoting liberty and opportunity.
Why should poor children lose their
right to capital as the price of a decent education?
Perhaps today’s Liberal Democrats
are not convinced that the ownership of property matters. But they need only
consult their own tradition of Liberalism to see why it matters so much.
First, property is crucial to
liberty. Someone with their own property has a degree of economic independence.
Since they are less dependent on others – employers, spouses – for an income,
they are more able to exit relationships if others start trying to bully them.
This is what the Liberal leader Jo Grimond was getting at when he said that
property is ‘a shield against petty tyranny.’ In addition, as the US liberal
philosophers Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott argue, holding some assets at the
start of adulthood enables the individual to ask meaningfully: ‘What do I want
to do with my life?’ Property is the basis for approaching life in a creative
manner.
This brings us to opportunity. Nick Clegg claims that the Liberal
Democrats are committed to greater social mobility. But without a
policy like
the CTF, the Liberal Democrats have no way of combating one important
obstacle
to social mobility. Those who receive large inheritances or gifts,
particularly
in their early adult lives, will have opportunities that others lack:
opportunities for training and education, to travel and learn, to take
up
unpaid internships, to set up a business of their own. By securing at
least
some wealth for all citizens at maturity, policies like the CTF have
the
potential to address this obstacle to equality of opportunity. Of
course, opposing the CTF gives the Liberal Democrats an easy way to
look ‘tough’ on tax and spending. But it does this at the price of
contradicting the very essence of Liberalism: the values of liberty and
opportunity. So until the party rethinks its opposition
to the CTF, its claims to be the party of liberty and opportunity - of
a radical,
progressive Liberalism - will ring hollow indeed.
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