Local campaigners turned out in Weymouth to remind local politicians that their stance on tax credits is not shared by many in the community nor by the Parliamentary Work and Pensions Committee. Some local 38 Degrees campaigners met at Weymouth’s Kings Statue to hand a petition to local MP Richard Drax. Unfortunately ‘he was unable to make it’ and nor were every other local councillors invited. Whether they found the damp conditions challenging has not yet been determined. However, the campaign will continue to enlighten as many as possible given that many local people will be detrimentally affected by this draconian attack on the less well off. This is supported at Westminster by both the House of Lords and increasingly by the more compassionate members of Parliament.
Tax credit cuts should be delayed for at least a year, MPs have said.
Members of the work and pensions committee gave a blunt assessment of the government’s controversial reforms to the benefits system and concluded that the numbers simply don’t add up.
They published a report that warned support for the hardest-hit did not go far enough and called on the chancellor to delay the policy’s implementation.
The committee said: “The measures the government has so far cited in mitigation of tax credit cuts will simply not reach many of those worst affected, and the benefits for those who would be helped are dwarfed’ by the cuts. As things stand the majority of families affected will still be worse off by 20’20-21.”
In effect, the committee has told the Treasury to go away and do its sums again.
The report highlighted that a single earner with two children working 35 hours will increase their net income by £323 pounds a year under the National Living Wage, but will lose £1,701 in tax credit cuts, leaving the family £1,378 worse off overall.
There were other examples – as well as a stiff warning to chancellor George Osborne not to raid the Universal Credit and a rebuke to his department for not being clear about the impact of policy.
The committee said: “The Treasury has been unacceptably evasive in failing to provide data about the effects of its Summer Budget measures on different income groups: obfuscation is not consistent with effective scrutiny or effective policy-making.”
David Cameron refuses to answer Jeremy Corbyn six times on tax credits
Update: People who were told about the 38 degrees presentation on Tax Credits. Drax was informed but had prior engagements, his secretary tried to rearrange and called me back. Clr Kate Weller Labour – I received an apology as she has county council work in Dorchester at the time. Two other labour borough councillors informed but did not attend.
Libdem, Tory and Ukip borough councillors, no response. Greens informed and there were Green Party members at the event. There was also a Tory party activist there
