John Hemming MP has written to Dawn Primarolo calling for a further investigation into the operation of tax credits (Birmingham Liberal Democrats)

Birmingham Liberal Democrats <info@birminghamlibdems.org.uk>

John Hemming MP has written to Dawn Primarolo calling for a further investigation into the operation of tax credits

August 19, 2005 6:00 PM

John Hemming, MP for Birmingham Yardley

John Hemming MP for Birmingham Yardley has written to Dawn Primarolo calling for a further investigation into the operation of tax credits. "It has been leaked to me", he said "that complaints post is currently taking 2 week to get from the post room to the tax credits department. This means the government's approach of waiting until people claim causes extra misery after they have complained."

Mr. Hemming said "Furthermore the computer system system automatically generates an award notice every time the payment figure is changed. That can mean 3 or 4 notice being generated in one hour. This will cause a lot of confusion as well as adding additional administrative costs. What the government should do is only deduct overpayments once they have spoken to the recipient. If they were employers they would do this for overpaid salary."