british conservatives pinch affluent cheese recipients

Guardian | Child benefit payments for all higher-rate taxpayers will be stopped to pay for wider welfare reform and to show that "we are all in this together", George Osborne said today.

The chancellor said the cut – which will apply to people on the 40% and 50% income tax rates from 2013 – was "difficult but fair" and would raise around £1bn. People earning more than about £44,000 would be affected.

Osborne's announcement came in the run-up to today's keynote speech to the Conservative conference in Birmingham, in which he will vow to stick by his controversial plan to wipe out Britain's £109bn structural deficit in one parliament.

He will say the alternative – to delay the measures – would hit the poor and consign the country to a decade of debt.

The child benefit cut will help play for Tory plans for a universal single welfare benefit that will cover tax credits as well other benefits including housing benefit, jobseeker's allowance and council tax benefit.

"I understand these people [those affected by the child benefit change] are not the super-rich, but we have to make sure that we're all in this together," Osborne told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"I think people out there will understand that it's fair that you don't tax someone earning £18,000 a year to pay the child benefit of someone earning £50,000 a year.

"It's not a decision we've taken lightly – we think this is fair ... each part of society is going to make a contribution."