Andina Aliaga raise awareness of possible cuts on child tax credits in UK

Andina Aliaga

 

Nota en inglés:

Andina Aliaga alerta de posibles cortes en la seguridad social de los niños británicos,

Correspondencia con Tommy Sheppard,

miembro del Parlamento Británico.

 

 

Dear Andina

 

Thank you for your email. Needless to say I completely agree with you.  We found out in the Budget that the government will cut child tax credits. This will cause untold hardship and suffering to many.

It is estimated that an additional one million children across the UK, which would mean an additional 100,000 children in Scotland, will be growing up in poverty by 2020. That is why the Scottish National Party will continue to vigorously oppose plans for further cuts in Child Benefit and Tax Credits - allowing these payments to erode in value simply pushes more children into poverty.

We believe the government should instead increase benefits at least in line with CPI inflation, to ensure that the incomes of the poorest in society do not fall even further behind the cost of living, and we will support an increase in free childcare to 30 hours per week by 2020. For low-income households we will back an increase of at least the cost of living in welfare benefits such as child benefit, universal credit, disability benefits and also in tax credits.

The excuse that the Conservatives are using is that they want to increase incentives to work and that they would rather people pay less tax in the first place. The truth is that 70% of those who get tax credits are working and more than half of those earn less than £10,000 a year so currently do not pay any tax. Child tax credits are often used to pay for childcare meaning that parents can go out to work, stopping them is only likely to force more people onto benefits.

Back in April, before the election, when David Cameron was speaking about the current level of Child Tax Credit he told an audience at a BBC Election Special:  ‘That’s not going to fall’. It seems fair to say that the UK did not vote for this policy, and we intend to hold the government to account.

 

I aim to have a website and blog up and running shortly, where you will be able to follow progress

on this and other issues. We will also be publishing an online monthly newsletter for constituents to

keep you informed. In the mean time you can follow me on Twitter and Facebook, where I will be

posting regular updates.

 

Thank you again for taking the time to write to me.

 

Best 

Tommy

 

 

Tommy Sheppard MP

SNP Spokesperson on the Cabinet Office

Member of the Westminster Parliament for Edinburgh East

 

Constituency Office: 16A Willowbrae Road, Edinburgh EH8 7DB

Tel: (0131) 661 8023

Westminster: House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA  

Tel: (0207) 219 6653

 

 

 

From: Andina Aliaga 

Sent: 04 July 2015
To: SHEPPARD, Tommy
Subject: Child Tax Credits

 

Dear Tommy Sheppard,

Hi Tommy,

Firstly congratulations on your election, I voted for you and am pleased with your work so far :).

I feel I must write to you and express my concerns with government plans to cut child tax credit. My own family have received this benefit in the past and I am certain that without it we wouldn't have been able to have a basic standard of living or have been able to better ourselves into the position we are now, completely off all benefits and paying a lot of income tax to the government.

Denying people a chance at upward mobility by forcing them into poverty only harms the economy and the human spirit. Unless an alternative living wage is implemented to replace the tax credits I am strongly against these proposals and am extremely concerned about the fatalities that will occur as a result of them. When you take away a persons ability to sustain themselves you take away everything, including their hope and will to live. Future generations will also suffer greatly as they are subjected to poor quality foods and malnutrition in their youth. There were days before I had my tax credits that I literally starved and had to offer my daughter very bleak meals if anything at all, so I speak from a place of experience.

I am aware that these proposals haven't been formally announced but I would appreciate it if you could reiterate my concerns to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith today?

We must be protected from people of privilege making poor decisions on topics that they have no direct knowledge of. Communities are made from real living, breathing, feeling people, people who can bleed or succeed depending on the opportunities and people they have around them. We are not an inconvenient statistic!

Many thanks in advance for your assistance with these concerns,

Yours sincerely,

Andina Aliaga