I heard the French system was really good - apparantly they multiply the tax credits by the number of dependants. If you have a spouse that counts as 1.0 and every child counts as 0.5. In that way the larger your family the larger your tax credits. I read in that Iona Institute Paper on Individualisation (http://www.ionainstitute.ie) that the UK switched to a system of Individualisation but actually there are calls to move away from that system now. My sisters husband works for the labour party in London and she said the party are worried about the way the Tories are going all 'pro-family' and taking a large percentage of the vote.