Chris Leslie, Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, responding to George Osborne’s press briefing, said:
“The Tories won’t admit where their £12 billion of welfare cuts will come from, but after this press conference it’s now clear middle income families are in the firing line.
“George Osborne repeatedly refused to rule out rolling child benefit into universal credit. This would mean 4.3 million families losing over £1000 a year, according to the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies.”
On George Osborne’s claims about Labour, Chris Leslie said:
“This is utterly desperate stuff from a failing Tory campaign. They are repeating lies about Labour which were totally discredited by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies last week.
“The Tories must explain how they will pay for their £10 billion of totally unfunded tax promises. If they fail to do so people will conclude the Tories are planning to do what they always do – raising VAT again to make their sums add up. £10 billion is the equivalent of a two per cent rise in VAT, which would cost families with children £1440 over four years.
“And the Tories need to explain why they are repeatedly refusing to rule out another top rate tax cut for millionaires. It’s now clear that as well as a VAT rise and cuts to child benefit for millions of families, the Tories are planning another £3 billion giveaway to the top one per cent of earners.
“It’s the same old Tory way - millions paying more, millionaires paying less and deeper spending cuts in the next three years than the last five years.”
According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the policy which George Osborne repeatedly failed to rule out today would:
“reduce benefit entitlements by around £4.8 billion a year, since there are over 4.3 million families who receive child benefit at the moment but who will not be entitled to universal credit in the future, each of whom would lose over £1,000 a year.”
The IFS Green Budget 2015, February 2015, pg 213
http://passthrough.fw-notify.net/download/209287/http://www.ifs.org.uk/uploads/gb/gb2015/gb2015.pdf