Strivers tax could hit 8,000 Lincoln families, Labour warns

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Lincoln Labour Parliamentary candidate Lucy Rigby (centre, front) and Don Valley MP Caroline Flint campaigned on the High Street against the controversial 'strivers tax'. Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite

More than 8,000 families in Lincoln could be affected by a controversial ‘strivers tax’, according to new figures compiled by HMRC and highlighted by Labour.

The tax is actually a cap on all working age benefits, including tax credits and child benefit, which will go up by 1% a year, less than the 2.2% rate of inflation, for the next three years.

The cap would mean in actual terms a budget cut of £279 per year for families.

Across the country, the tax will leave 7.9 million working families with at least one adult being £1,152 worse off over the next five years.

Lincoln Labour Parliamentary Candidate Lucy Rigby was on Lincoln High Street on Thursday, campaigning to get people to sign a petition against the tax.

She was joined by Caroline Flint MP, Labour’s Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary, whom she was twinned with until the elections.

Lucy Rigby said: “Labour believes that working families shouldn’t have to pay the price of Tory failure. With over 8,000 families claiming working tax credit and affected by the strivers’ tax whilst the government is cutting taxes for millionaires at the same time, this is clearly a government who are out of touch with the lives of people here in Lincoln who are feeling the squeeze on their living standards.”

Caroline Flint, MP for Don Valley, said: “Within the shadow cabinet, we’ve all been asked to twin with one of our candidates around the country, and I’m a Doncaster MP, and I’m delighted to be twinning with Lucy Rigby.

“It’s really important that we encourage people to find work, because work is important in our lives, it gives us a reason to get up in the morning. But the truth is that there are many people in low employment that need additional support, and that’s something that many governments, of all political persuasions have recognised.

“What we’ve got now is a tax on those people who are doing right by finding work, but then finding that they are being undermined by the cuts in working tax credit and child tax credit. 8,000 families here in Lincoln are going to work, and we think they’re going to be affected, and that’s wrong,” Caroline Flint MP added.