Ed Balls hits back at David Cameron in marriage row

Marriage became a key battlezone for the general election today as David Cameron's pledge of tax breaks met a fierce Labour backlash.

Children's Secretary Ed Balls branded the Tory leader "out of touch" and said he was treating unmarried and separated parents as "second class families". Seizing on a policy pledge that Labour believes will backfire with today's varied society, he said the Cameron plan would mean a woman whose husband abandons her would be hit by a higher tax bill at the moment of greatest need.

"That seems to me to be really outdated and old-fashioned," said Mr Balls. "There are lots of different types of families. The important thing is to make sure that families under pressure get support."

Mr Balls and wife Yvette Cooper are the first married couple to serve as Cabinet ministers. He went on: "I think marriage is important. What I'm not going to do is say there's only one type of family which is good ... and everybody else is second class."

Mr Cameron started the row by accusing Labour of a "pathological" opposition to marriage, saying it was normal in other European countries to recognise marriage in the tax system. "Labour's pathological inability to recognise that marriage is a good thing puts them on completely the wrong side of their own dividing line," he said. "Ed Balls seems to see marriage as irrelevant. I don't think it is."

However, for the first time, the Tory leader ruled out a £5 billion plan proposed by former leader Iain Duncan Smith to let married couples combine their tax allowances. He would only say that the eventual Tory plan would not be tied to income and would also reward gay couples in civil partnerships.

"A society that values marriage is a good and strong society," said Mr Cameron, citing studies that showed married couples stayed together longer.