Living Standards

Iain McKenzie Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde) (Lab)]

It is now painfully obvious that our economy has stalled. That is evident in the soaring increase in unemployment and the even more alarming increase in youth unemployment. There is now a demand, clearly expressed by families up and down Britain, for a real plan for jobs and growth in next month’s Budget.

We also need the Government to make different choices to help families who are feeling increasingly squeezed in these tough times. If we are indeed in this together, why have the Prime Minister and the Chancellor chosen to hit hard-working families with children, who will lose an average of £4,000 a year from policies coming into effect this April? If we add to that the high cost of food, fuel, rents and so on, it seems that some are more in it than others. My constituents in Inverclyde need a Budget for jobs and growth to boost the economy—a fair Budget to ensure that families on low and middle incomes do not bear the heaviest burden in these difficult times.

I shall focus on two aspects. First, the proposed changes to eligibility for working tax credits will hit hardest many parents in part-time work. People who are responsible for at least one child and working at least 16 hours a week can get working tax credit, but from 6 April the rules for couples with at least one child change. In most cases, to qualify for working tax credit, they will need to work at least 24 hours a week jointly, with one working at least 16 hours a week. If only one of the couple works, they must work at least 24 hours a week. Working tax credit for couples to whom neither situation applies will stop from 6 April.

In my constituency, 185 households containing 365 children stand to lose out from that proposal, which will penalise parents who are working and trying to do the right thing, but who cannot increase their working hours at a time when the economy is flatlining and unemployment is rising. Few employers are currently offering an increase in part-time work hours. The change to tax credit is unfair and damaging and should be cancelled before it makes matters even worse for those hard-working parents. The Chancellor could use the hundreds of millions of pounds that the Government have said could be raised by closing a stamp duty tax avoidance loophole on properties worth more than £1 million. That would resonate as fair with my constituents and go some way to convincing them that we are in this together and paying for it equally together.

Secondly, the Government need urgently to review the planned changes to child benefit, as a result of which around 1.5 million families will effectively lose their child benefit. Surely it cannot be fair that a two-earner family on £42,000 each—a total of £84,000—will keep their child benefit, but a single-earner family on £43,000 will lose out. The Opposition support the principle of universal child benefit, but if the Government are determined to make changes, can they not be made more fairly and in a better and more workable way?

Hitting families with the two changes I have outlined will unfairly reduce their living standards. The changes were rashly and hurriedly announced last year. The feeling is that Ministers have clearly not thought through the consequences. Many thousands of parents on low and middle incomes face losing a huge proportion of that income at a time when every penny counts. Bizarrely, far from the Government making work pay, many parents could find that they are better off on benefit. That makes no economic sense at all.