LETTER: Families will be hit by cuts

This will be in effect a “Strivers’ tax”.

Working families in Pendle will be amazed that the Lib-Dem/Tory Coalition is asking them to pick up the tab for their failure at the same time as the Coalition gives a £3 billion tax cut to their millionaire chums.

The 8,300 working families who receive Working Tax Credits in Pendle are facing this strivers tax because this government has failed on jobs and growth.

Last month, the Coalition Government admitted their Work Programme is worse than doing nothing, leaving millions locked out of work and pushing the benefit bill through the roof – an eye-watering £13.6 billion higher than expected.

In October, 2012, there were 2,087 unemployed benefit claimants in Pendle but only 275 vacancies. That’s 7.6 claimants per vacancy. 990 claimants were referred to the Work Programme but only 10 were found jobs. Since 2010, there has been a significant cut in the number of jobs per person in Pendle.

To pay down the price of that failure they are raiding the budget of their own Universal Credit programme which was supposed to make sure you’re always better off in work. Instead, the scheme will lock in their Working Tax Credit cuts.

Taking into account everything George Osborne announced in the Autumn Statement, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that one-earner families with children will on average be £534 a year worse off by 2015. Yet 8,000 millionaires will get an average tax cut of over £107,000 next April.

COUN. IAN TWEEDIE

Vivary Bridge Ward,

Pendle Council