Cameron attacks Brown over tax credits
David Cameron today condemned the government’s tax credit scheme as a “painful paperchase for hard-working families” in his latest attack on the chancellor.
The Conservative leader used a recent report on tax credits to launch into Gordon Brown for his “incompetence” – and to exploit the divisions between him and Tony Blair.
The Treasury select committee yesterday warned that while HM Revenue and Customs was trying to address the fact that £2 billion in credits was overpaid for the second year running, it was focusing too much on customer error and less on its own mistakes.
It said the department must refocus the way it works around the needs of claimants, and realise its job is to provide a service – and to ensure that low-income families in desperate need of the tax credits were properly dealt with.
The report is the latest attack on the beleaguered system and today Mr Cameron used prime minister’s question time in the Commons to demand that someone take responsibility for the problems.
“Which member of his government is responsible for this incompetence?” asked the Tory leader, in a thinly-veiled attack on Mr Brown, the prime-minister-in-waiting.
Mr Blair replied that the tax credit system had lifted 700,000 children out of poverty and helped millions of pensioners out of hardship, but Mr Cameron dismissed his answer.
“The chancellor is responsible and it comes to a pretty pass when the prime minister can’t even bear to say his name. all of our constituency surgeries are full of people dealing with this incompetence,” he declared.
“The chancellor hasn’t answered a single oral question in the last year – isn’t his behaviour typical of this government?
“Ministers create a massive bureaucracy that becomes a painful paperchase for hard-working families, so why won’t they take responsibility when it all goes wrong?”
The prime minister hit back by saying that while the tax credit system may have its problems, he was proud of it – and noted that low-income families were much better off under Labour, when the economy and inflation rates were stable, than under the Tories.
“As a result of the children’s tax credit we have helped millions of families let down by the Conservative years, by boom and bust economics, and that is why we have made the changes and we’re proud of it,” he insisted.
