A DECISION to axe child benefit for 1.2m better-off families – snatching back around £1,750 a year from parents with two children – triggered an angry backlash last night.

Chancellor George Osborne was accused of forcing families to "take the hit" for the economic crash and for penalising “stay-at-home” parents, who give up work to look after their children.

The move, announced at the Conservative conference in Birmingham, was attacked as unfair because families with one higher-rate taxpayer will lose the benefit, yet those with two earners paying basic-rate tax will continue to receive it – even though their combined income is much higher.

So, the axe will hit a single breadwinner earning more than £43,875 a year, but leave a further 900,000 families with a joint income as high as £87,000 untouched.

Criticism came from both children's charities and the Christian People's Alliance, which warned the measure was a "tax raid on the traditional family unit and incentivises divorce".

The Chancellor's aide also refused to rule out a second assault on child benefit – withdrawing it for over-16s – saying: "We are not getting drawn on other possibilities in the spending review."