Local MP Condemns Ministers For Shirking Their Responsibility Over Tax Credit Chaos

15.7.05

Speaking after last week's debate in Parliament on tax credits, Edward Davey MP for Kingston and Surbiton constituency will accuse the Prime Minister of misleading Parliament and Ministers of failing to control the system they created.

The scale of the problem is huge and is greatly affecting the people of are constituency and many others.

Nearly 2 million people around the country had overpayments in its first year, a third of all awards.

£1.9 billion of taxpayers' money overpaid, on top of the £800m automatically paid out because of the £2,500 disregard on income rises in 2003/04.

Administrative costs have risen from £36.1m in 1999/2000 to £136.7m in 2000/01 to £403.0m in 2003/04.

The latest error rate is 21.4% even though the Revenue previously claimed that error rates would be halved to around 6%.

Commenting on the figures, Edward Davey MP said:

"The tax credit system is in chaos. It is hitting those in Kingston and Surbiton, and in other constituencies, on low incomes hardest as they are often least able to cope with having their budgets messed about.

"The Prime Minister apologised a couple of weeks ago for the problems, but his assurance to people that they would not collect overpayments arising from official error was not true. It is not acceptable that he brushes away criticism of the Chancellor's flagship scheme with misleading apologies which he never bothers to publicly correct.

It is time the Chancellor and Paymaster General took responsibility for the chaos they have created and tell Parliament honestly what action they plan to take to bring this shambles to an end."