Lamb Quizzes Head Of Inland Revenue Over Tax Credit Fiasco

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Thu 19th Jun 2003

Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat MP for North Norfolk and his party's member of the Treasury Select Committee, has challenged the Chairman of the Inland Revenue, Sir Nicholas Montagu, over the ongoing chaos surrounding the Government's new tax credits.

During a Treasury Select Committee hearing on 18 June, Mr Lamb raised the delays, mistakes and confusion being experienced during introduction of the credits, which are adminstered by the Revenue.

"My office has been inundated by complaints from people who have had problems with the new tax credits," said Mr Lamb. "Often, these are people in quite difficult circumstances, who had been expecting to rely on this money for their weekly budgets as they had previously with the Working Families' Tax Credit, which was abolished with the introduction of the new tax credits.

"The Inland Revenue is clearly overstretched at the moment, and their staff have my sympathies as the problems relating to the tax credits are immense. The bureaucratic burden imposed on the Revenue is enormous. Sir Nicholas must take the lead in sorting out this débacle. There are still hundreds of thousands of people waiting for their claims to be determined."