LABOUR'S readiness to scrap child benefit for a million youngsters, aged 16 to 18, is being presented as a sign of the party's readiness to make "hard choices" on spending when in government.

But, perhaps, this particular step is less than that.

For this policy on benefit for the over 16s is designed not so much to cut spending to avoid tax increases, but to relocate the £700million savings towards youngsters of a similar age group - so that more children from poorer families can stay on at school and go on to college or university.

So, while seeking to demonstrate to the middle class New Labour's prudence in the tax-spend realm, it is, in reality, addressing the concerns of the less well-off working class with this switch of resources.

This may be seen by many traditional Labour supporters as a welcome sign that the party, in its eagerness to woo the middle class, has not altogether forgotten its roots.

But, in addition, its readiness to grasp the social security nettle will be well-received by taxpayers who are contributing to a fund that has been making relentless demands on them.

For, though this proposed "cut" would not bringing about savings in public expenditure but only a shift in it, it would, nevertheless, involve the blanket removal of an entire group from child benefit and would penalise all income groups.

In turn, that must make Labour address - from both the social justice viewpoint and that of tax-spending prudence - the legitimacy of paying the benefit to all income groups in the first place.

And it might also more credibly test its ability to make hard choices on spending.

For, as it is structured, child benefit runs the gamut from being a vital supplement to the incomes of many families to being a source of spending money for luxuries in many others.

Labour, we understand, is still looking at whether the benefit should be taxed for higher-rate taxpayers.

But while such a move would demonstrate much better its preparedness to target help towards the less well-off at the expense of the better off, such a method of doing it would be clumsy, as it involves the state giving money with one hand and removing it with another.

More bold and more fair would be for a government of any colour to means test child benefit - and the electoral backlash from the deprived middle class would be swiftly diminished if the billions saved went straight into tax cuts.

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