During his 2015 Autumn Budget Statement, Chancellor George Osborne said that he would not go ahead with plans to cut in-work benefits (tax credits).
However on Monday night, MPs voted in favour of £1 billion of cuts to tax credits without any debate in the house.
Turner voted in favour of cuts
Isle of Wight Conservative MP, Andrew Turner was one of the 272 MPs who voted to in favour of the cut in Tax Credits to those struggling to survive on low incomes.
The vote was to reduce the ‘income disregard’ figure from £5,000 to £2,500. If someone claiming tax credits earns more than they expected in a year, they currently have a threshold of £5,000 before having to pay back the benefits. This figure has now been slashed in half by MPs, putting many families on low incomes in potentially devastating situations.
Affecting 100s of 1000s
The Independent claims “Hundreds of thousands of low income workers are expected to have to pay back some or all of their tax credits as a result of the change”.
MP unaccountable
OnTheWight has written to Andrew Turner asking him the following
- Please explain your thinking in voting for the Tax Credit ‘income disregard’ threshold cuts?
- How many working Isle of Wight families will be impacted by these cuts?
- What have you calculated the average cut to each of those families will be?
Mr Turner seems to have become unaccountable in the last few months, ignoring many media enquiries from OnTheWight and other organisations. We’ll let you know if we hear back.
