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People being 'left in tears' - says MP

From the Chard & Ilminster News, first published Wednesday 10th Oct 2007.

YEOVIL MP David Laws believes his criticism of the Tax Credits system has been vindicated following the publication of a report by the Parliamentary Ombudsman.

The report has been criticial of the administration of the Tax Credits and Mr Laws believes that the Prime Minister now needs to do something to sort out the system.

"Millions of people are being asked to pay back thousands of pounds each every year, in spite of the fact that quite often the overpayments are actually caused by mistakes by the Inland Revenue, which people could not have been aware of," he said.

"I am furious that even though these problems have been known about for years, Gordon Brown has done nothing to fix the system."

Mr Laws said that many people on low incomes had been driven further into poverty by large overpayments.

"Sometimes I have had people in my advice centres in tears because of the debts which face them," he said.

"The Ombudsman has shown that the system is often unfair and unreasonable, and is so complex that even many MPs don't seem to understand it.

"The Government must now change the rules to stop clawing money back from those people who could not reasonably have known about their overpayments. The Government should also move to a system of fixed awards which will eliminate the instability of the existing system.

"I will be pressing for an urgent debate in Parliament on this issue."

And he added: "Meanwhile any constituent of mine who is being unfairly asked to repay a tax credit sum should get in contact with me."

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