Working families tax credit left out of Portillo's Tory U-turns
Shadow chancellor Michael Portillo has omitted the working families tax credit from a list of Labour reforms he said the Tories would keep in the event that they gained power.
Portillo – who announced the Conservatives’ u-turns over Bank of Englandindependence and the minimum wages – ignored the tax allowance during hisfirst performance at the despatch box in the Commons.
A Treasury questions session saw Tory spokesman Howard Flight denounce itfor costing employers £100 million to administer and for allowing claimsfrom families with incomes as high as £38,000.
Flight also accused chancellor Gordon Brown of ‘creative accounting’ byfailing to put the national accounts ‘on a reliable footing’ by treatingthe allowance as a tax cut instead of a social security spending increase.
The contrasting treatment of WFTC by the Opposition suggested its abolitionwould be high on their priority list.
Portillo begins new job by pledging to keep in place Labour reforms