Agenda item

Tax Credits (2)

It was moved by Councillor Shaffaq Mohammed, seconded by Councillor Steve Ayris, that this Council:-

(a)       regrets the Government’s plan to slash Tax Credits from 1st April 2016;

(b)       notes that despite massive public opposition, and opposition from Conservative backbenchers, the Government attempted to press ahead with these unnecessary ideological cuts that will hit the working poor hardest;

(c)        notes that if the proposed changes to Tax Credits were implemented:-

(i)         25,000 families in Sheffield are set to lose out an average £750 a year in Tax Credits; and

(ii)        40,000 children in our area would be forced to live in poorer households, reducing their life chances and making it harder for their parents to make ends meet;

(d)       notes that cutting Tax Credits was not in the Conservative Party manifesto, and the Prime Minister explicitly ruled them out during the General Election campaign, meaning the Government does not have a mandate to carry this out;

(e)       regrets that these Government proposals have got to this stage after the Welfare Reform and Work Bill passed through the House of Commons, which 184 Labour MPs failed to oppose, including 4 of the 5 Sheffield Labour MPs;

(f)        notes that the Labour Party has repeatedly wavered on their position on tax credit cuts and two Shadow Cabinet Ministers, MPs Diane Abbott and Seema Malhotra, have been unable to say that the Labour Party would reverse the cuts;

(g)       believes the Labour Lords amendment which was passed on Monday 26th October 2015 to delay the cuts by three years and implement ‘transitional measures’ is a step in the right direction but it does not go far enough and will be of little solace to hardworking people on low incomes when the Government’s proposals are implemented in three years’ time;

(h)       notes that the Liberal Democrat peers tabled a ‘fatal motion’ to kill off Tax Credit changes for good but this was defeated because Labour members in the House of Lords did not support it; and

(i)         therefore, calls on the Council to write to The Baroness Smith of Basildon, Shadow Leader in the House of Lords, regretting the decision of Labour peers to only delay Tax Credit cuts.

Whereupon, it was moved by Councillor George Lindars-Hammond, seconded by Councillor Adam Hurst, as an amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by the deletion of all the words after the words “That this Council” and the addition of the following words:-

(a)         is appalled by the Government’s decision to cut tax credits which will reduce the incomes of over 3 million working families, including 27,000 in Sheffield, by an average of £1,300 a year from April 2016;

(b)         believes the Government’s decision to cut tax credits clearly shows that the Conservatives are not on the side of working people, and that attempts to rebrand themselves as the ‘workers’ party’ are nothing more than empty rhetoric;

(c)         notes that there was no mention of cutting tax credits in the Conservative Party manifesto and recalls that the Prime Minister explicitly ruled out cuts to tax credits in the run up to the General Election on BBC Question Time on 30 April 2015;

(d)         notes research from the Resolution Foundation which found that the proposed cuts to tax credits will immediately push a further 200,000 children into poverty;

(e)         further notes comments made by Paul Johnson, Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, who said it was “arithmetically impossible” for the increase in the minimum wage to compensate for the loss in tax credits;

(f)          believes that these cuts to the income of working families on low wages are unjustifiable, particularly given cuts to inheritance tax and to the top rate of income tax; and

(g)         calls on the Government to heed the House of Lords’ opposition to these cuts and to reverse in full the proposed reductions to tax credits.

On being put to the vote, the amendment was carried.

It was then moved by Councillor Brian Webster, seconded by Councillor Robert Murphy, as an amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by the addition of new paragraphs (i) and (j) as follows, and the relettering of original paragraph (i) as a new paragraph (k):-

(i)          agrees with comments made by the Green Peer, Jenny Jones, that the Government’s cuts to tax credits are “unthinking, uncaring and cruel”, and commends Baroness Jones and all other members of the House of Lords who opposed these cuts;

(j)          further, agrees with Baroness Jones’ comments that, “It is regrettable that it falls upon an unelected body to hold this Government to account – but until we have a fully elected second chamber, Peers must continue to properly scrutinise this kind of deeply damaging legislation”.

On being put to the vote, the amendment was negatived.

The original Motion, as amended, was then put as a Substantive Motion in the following form and carried:-