Vicky Foxcroft – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Vicky Foxcroft on 2015-10-09.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to paragraph 1.44 of the Summer Budget 2015, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effects of changes to child tax credits on the incidence of (a) in-work poverty and (b) homelessness.

Damian Hinds

The Government is making changes to Child Tax Credits which will help put welfare spending on a more sustainable path. The Government wants to move from a low wage, high tax, high welfare society to a higher wage, lower tax, lower welfare society.

The changes will ensure that work will always pay more than a life on benefits, support will be focused more on those on the very lowest incomes and the system will be fairer upon those who pay for it, as well as those who benefit from it. Taking the welfare changes in the Summer Budget together with the record increases in the income tax personal allowance and the introduction of the New Living Wage, 8 out of 10 working households will be better off by 2017/18.

The Summer Budget publication also sets out illustrative examples (Table 1.8, p.40) of the combined impact of the changes to welfare, the personal allowance and the National Living Wage on individual households.