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Public Accounts

My hon. Friend, along with most other Members, will have had countless constituency cases where, as a result of some of the errors inherent in the system, some of the most vulnerable in our society have been encouraged to repay substantial amounts of money amounting to thousands of pounds. When such errors occur, it undoubtedly shakes the confidence of those individuals in the quality of our benefit system. It is no surprise to hear that some people would rather wash their hands of it. Another thing that came out of inquiries into tax credits was a lack of transparency in Government when introducing the scheme. The income disregard was increased in the 2005 Budget from £2,500 to £25,000, and at the time I recall that very little, if any, information was provided by the Treasury on the financial consequences of that. An overall number was put into the Red Book, which was an agglomeration of different aspects of the benefit changes involving tax credits, but that particular income disregard was never specifically quantified, and it was only as a result of persistent questioning by our Committee that the Treasury were prepared to come up with the estimated cost of the disregard, two years later. That is a sorry state of affairs, because it had clearly made the calculation but was not prepared to make it public at the time, presumably for reasons of political embarrassment. Again, that demonstrates the value of the Committee in holding not just Government to account, but their officers and organs.