Child benefit, the quarterly payments made to all families with children, is to be frozen until 2012, family minister André Rouvoet told MPs on Thursday.

The payout is usually increased in line with inflation. Rouvoet had already said the July 1 increase would not go ahead.
The payout for a child up to the age of five is €194.99 every quarter. Older children qualify for more.
Rouvoet also plans to cut the provisions of a second benefit for poor families in order to save €290m by 2014, news agency ANP said.