Tax Credits (Working Families)

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Lyn Brown

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that 60% of those in receipt of tax credits do not pay income tax anyway. If someone is working 30 hours a week on the national minimum wage, they are below the £10,600 personal allowance threshold.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

The last comment and the one earlier from the hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer) amply illustrate Government Members’ failure to understand the impact the proposal will have. It will affect 22,000 children in my constituency alone—children who live in homes of families who work but are on low wages—through no fault of their own.

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend makes her point powerfully, but it is not that Government Members do not understand—I think they know full well the impact of their decisions; they simply want to pretend it is not going to be as bad as everybody knows it will be.

A Resolution Foundation study of these proposals just a couple of weeks ago suggests that

“over two-thirds of the families affected would be in-work”,

that

“almost two-thirds of the cut would be borne by the poorest 30 per cent of households; and”

that

“almost none of the cut would fall upon the richest 40 per cent of households”.

On what basis, then, can the Tories claim to be the party of working people? These are the working people the Government are choosing to hit and hurt. If the Government are happy to make these choices, they should at least admit that, rather than hiding behind the rhetoric of being the party of working people, as if somehow that will get them through the next five years.