text: George Osborne has refused to rule out further cuts to child benefit if the Conservatives win a second term. The Chancellor appeared to leave the door open when asked if he would be ‘depriving more families’ of the payments which are worth more than £1,000 per year. More than a million households lost out when the Coalition announced that families with one parent earning £50,000 would pay tax on child benefit. Earners over £60,000 lost out altogether. Scroll down for video . Chancellor George Osborne, pictured visiting the Red Cone Cafe in Stourbridge, refused to rule out further cuts to child benefit if the Conservatives win a second term . The controversial measure, brought in two and a half years ago as part of the Government’s austerity programme, was criticised for penalising single-earner families and stay-at-home mothers. It meant anyone earning less than £50,000 – even a couple on £49,000 each - still received the full entitlement of £20.70 a week for the first child, and £13.70 for every subsequent child. Mr Osborne was asked at a briefing in central London on the economy this morning whether he could ‘rule out depriving more people of child benefit, like you’ve already done in this Parliament?’ The Conservatives say they would cut £30billion of spending if they win a second term. Of this £12billion would be slashed from the welfare bill, with the rest from government departments and further cracking down on tax avoidance. While the Prime Minister has given a commitment to protect the state pension, few other savings have been set out apart from reducing the cap on a family’s annual benefits from £26,000 to £23,000. Mr Osborne did not directly answer about reducing the threshold, only saying that child benefit would not be replaced by the new benefits system Universal Credit, which is being rolled out nationally. The respected think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies have suggested that increasing Universal Credit for some families and using it instead of child benefit could save £4.8billion a year. The Chancellor said: ‘You can judge us on our record in this Parliament. If we wanted to put child benefit into Universal Credit we would have done it when we set up Universal Credit. ‘We’ve got a track record, we’ve got a plan based on clear principles of making work pay, sharpening work incentives.’ Asked again why he did not rule out any type of child benefit cuts, he said: ‘I’ve given you a very clear answer. We’ve created a welfare system where child poverty is down, inequality is down, we have a record low number of workless households and what we are doing is creating welfare system where it pays to work and we protect the most vulnerable. ‘We are going to carry on doing that in the next Parliament. But we can’t do any of these things without economic security and a growing economy.’ Mr Osborne was asked at a briefing in central London on the economy this morning whether he could ‘rule out depriving more people of child benefit, like you’ve already done in this Parliament?' The Chancellor said the Coalition had saved £21billion in this Parliament, and the ‘same principles’ would apply if his party win a second term – with further reforms to welfare . The Chancellor said the Coalition had saved £21billion in this Parliament, and the ‘same principles’ would apply if his party win a second term – with further reforms to welfare. ‘This is perfectly achievable and anyone who thinks that the job of reforming welfare has somehow been completed, I think, is mistaken. ‘We want to go on creating a welfare system which rewards work and the aspirations of families and protect the most vulnerable’, he said. It is widely speculated that the Conservatives could restrict child benefit to just two children, to save around £2billion a year. Work and Pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith is sympathetic to the idea. He recently said it was ‘well worth looking at’ and could save ‘significant money’ and help with ‘behaviour change’ by forcing couples to think carefully about whether they could afford to have another child. It was not seriously considered in this Parliament due to opposition from the Liberal Democrats and David Cameron appeared to reject it last year amid concerns it would alienate low-income families. The event attended by Mr Osborne, and Treasury minister David Gauke and Priti Patel was an analysis of the Labour’s party fiscal plans, if Ed Miliband gets into Downing Street. He claimed the Labour party would ‘never’ eliminate the budget deficit – unlike Tory plans to run a surplus by 2020 – because they would borrow billions of pounds every year and not cut spending. ‘When the economy's growing, and we're not in recession, we should be raising more than we spend’, he said. ‘That's the way, proven around the world, to bear down on your national debt and best prepare yourself for any future economic storms. Fixing the roof while the sun is shining. ‘The Labour Party don't want to do that, they only talked about balancing the current, day to day, spending while continuing to borrow to pay for capital spending. What they don't tell you is that means a permanent, never-ending budget deficit.’ Labour’s shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Chris Leslie said Mr Osborne had put middle income families in the firing line. He said: ‘The Tories won't admit where their £12 billion of welfare cuts will come from, but after this press conference it's now clear middle income families are in the firing line. ‘George Osborne repeatedly refused to rule out rolling child benefit into universal credit. This would mean 4.3 million families losing over £1,000 a year, according to the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies.’ An aide to Mr Osborne played down suggestions the Conservatives were planning changes to child benefit. �4a, .
target: Chancellor paves the way for further cuts to payments with £1,000-a-year .
  Challenged to ‘rule out depriving more people of child benefit' at briefing .
  Refuses to rule out rolling Child Benefit into Universal Credit system .
  Labour says Osborne has put middle income families 'in the firing line'