As the House of Lords prepares for a crunch vote on planned cuts to tax credits, a local political party has said it’s had an overwhelming response to a campaign aimed at cancelling out the cuts.
Chancellor George Osbourne announced in his July budget that the threshold that tax credits will begin to be withdrawn from will fall from the current level of £6,420 a year to £3,850 a year.
The plan is part of package of reforms that aims to save the Government £15 billion a year – but there are concerns that families will be worse off despite plans to introduce a national living wage.
Research released earlier this week by the Labour party reveals that 71 Conservative MPs live in areas where the number of people who will be hit by the Tax Credits cut is larger than their majority. That includes Reading West MP Alok Sharma.
On Saturday, Wokingham Labour went round homes in the Norreys ward to raise awareness for its Stop The Tax Credit Cuts campaign.
Organisers say that the Prime Minister David Cameron has broken his promise to stand-up for families and that the changes to the tax credits system will cost £1,300 a year.
Andy Croy, who stood for Labour in Wokingham at the General Election, told The Wokingham Paper: “We went door knocking for our Stop the Tax Credit Cuts campaign in Norreys on Saturday and had a very good response.
“About 80% of those asked signed the petition.”
The local party is now planning to collect more signatures to add to the petition on Saturday.
MPs voted on the Tax Credits plan on September 16 – all of Wokingham borough’s four MPs were in favour of the Government’s plans. The House of Lords is planning a so-called ‘fatal’ vote to prevent the policy from being made law, this vote is expected to take place next week.
