Croydon MPs react to Government U-turn on tax credit cuts

“Tax credits are being phased out anyway as we introduce universal credit”.

Mr Danczuk said: “I have been a vocal opponent of police cuts and the impact they have had locally”.

“And because I’ve been able to announce today an improvement in the public finances, the simplest thing to do is not to phase these changes in, but to avoid them altogether”.

Child tax credits will still be barred from being claimed by families for more than two children.

After listening to the Chancellor’s speech in the House of Commons chamber Ben commented how pleased he was that there will be no cuts to the police budget with real terms protection for police funding.

But he declared: “Now is not the time for further police cuts”.

THE head of the Metropolitan Police has welcomed the news police budgets will not be further cut.

Not everyone on benefits has been protected by Osborne’s U-turn. This follows on the heels of his last Budget when he announced that there would be a cut in tax relief on mortgage interest for landlords.

The Treasury has also confirmed that a string of measures, as part of Mr Osborne’s original tax credits plan, will still go ahead.

Shortly after today’s announcement, Steve Reed, Labour MP for Croydon North, suggested pressure from his own party had forced Mr Osborne to abandon the plans.

Many are the same people who would have been hit by the heavily criticised plans to reduce working tax credits, it warned.

George Osborne has defended himself against claims he got “lucky” with his Spending Review and denied he was gambling on the future.

The borrowing forecast for this year was cut from £74.1 billion to £73.5 billion, with the Government predicted to achieve a surplus of £10.1 billion in 2019/20 and £14.7 billion in 2020/21. Johnson added, “A 3 billion pound (about 4.52 billion US dollars) tax on the payrolls of companies with paybills over 3 million pounds is substantial, as is an increase in stamp duty land tax of almost 1 billion pounds on second homes and buy-to-let properties”.

Johnson said this demonstrated that the budget was “not the end of austerity”.

“We took the hard decisions then”.

But shadow chancellor John McDonnell condemned Mr Osborne’s record, telling MPs that over the last five years there has barely been a target the Chancellor has not missed or ignored.

Tax credit recipients will not now receive a cash cut to their benefits – something that many Conservative politicians had feared would lead to a popular backlash against their party.

“I know how much the value the support of the public and I know that all they want is the resources to do their job to the best of their ability”. Worldwide aid will also escape cuts.

These included the Department for Transport which will see its day-to-day spending fall 70 per cent between 2010 and 2019.

Developers could be given billions to build 400,000 new homes in England.

“What is also pleasing is the targeted number of apprenticeships; we need to develop the next generation of locally based, skilled workers in order to prevent a “brain drain” elsewhere and the apprenticeship levy should hopefully encourage this”.

He said: “The next three budgets will be the most hard we have had to balance in recent history”.