Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: G8 and Tax Credits.
G8
Put to him that the Prime Minister had seemed to imply in comments made last night that a deal in Gleneagles might not be achievable, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said no. The Prime Minister had said, as we had always maintained, that we have deliberately set very very ambitious targets for Gleneagles wand we would work very hard to try and achieve them.
Tax Credits
Asked if the Prime Minister had full confidence in the tax credits system, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister recognised that the tax credit system had benefited 6 million families including 10 million children. The vast majority of which had not experienced problems claims or payments. They had had an unprecedented take up, with an estimated 80% eligible families claiming child tax credit. Some of the problems which had arisen, had come about as a result of technical problems and administrative errors and where that had been the case the claimants would not suffer. Other problems had arisen where claimant’s income had increased but they hadn’t notified the appropriate authorities accordingly. On 26th May the Paymaster General set out a series of 6 measures, which were in part designed to improve communication to claimants, to remind them that if their circumstances changed they did need to notify the authorities, so that their payments could be adjusted accordingly and the problem avoided. Also there would be greater liaison with the voluntary sector to help those who got into difficulty.
Asked if the Paymaster General had deceived parliament, the PMOS said no. She would address this issue directly herself in Parliament later today, and he did not want to pre-empt what she would say. However as she had said this morning she had given a specific answer to a specific question. The detail of that was something that she would set out in Parliament. Asked if the Prime Minister had full confidence the Paymaster General, the PMOS said yes. Asked of the Prime Minister had full confidence in EDS, the company who designed the system, the PMOS said it was for the Treasury to talk about its relations with EDS. That was another matter to be dealt with by the Paymaster General in her statement.
Asked about whether we would consider writing off some of the debts incurred, the PMOS said that we should recognise that where there had been faults in the system we had taken action to write off those amounts. On the other hand we also had to recognise that this was tax-payers’ money and therefore we had to manage it accordingly. The important thing was that we helped those who did get into difficulties, given that some of the people involved were from vulnerable groups. As he had said one of the 6 measures the Paymaster General announced in March dealt with this.
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