A Conservative MP has used her maiden speech in the House of Commons to lambast George Osborne for planning to penalise low-paid workers with cuts to tax credits.

In a pointed address, Heidi Allen said the cuts fail David Cameron’s “family test” and are driven by the chancellor’s mistaken decision to run an overall budget surplus.

Heidi Allen MP: Tory tax credit rebel Read more

The MP for Cambridgeshire South said she had declined to make her maiden speech until now because she saw no point in doing so because both sides are “firmly married to their respective positions”.

Allen has asked questions since her election but had not delivered a full speech until a Labour debate on tax credits on Tuesday. Labour’s motion calling for the government to reverse its changes to tax credits was later rejected by 317 votes.

She said: “It is right that people are encouraged to strive for self reliance and to find work that pays for their independence from the state. But I worry that our single-minded determination to run a budget surplus is betraying who we are. I know true Conservatives have compassion running through their veins.”

Allen spoke out as the chances of a government defeat on the cuts in the Lords next week rose markedly after the Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, instructed his peers to vote for the fatal motion to block them.



The Lib Dem peer Lord Kirkwood had been planning to move a motion of regret, which would have amounted to a request for the government to reconsider its plans. But Farron’s intervention on Tuesday means the government is likely to be defeated, requiring ministers to restart the process in the Commons via a new statutory instrument.

The chancellor faced further pressure to water down his plans after Conservative MPs David Davis and Zac Goldsmith signed a cross-party motion calling on the government to do more to protect low-paid workers.

Government facing defeat in Lords over tax credits Read more

Goldsmith and Davis added their names to a motion calling for a backbench business debate to be held on the proposed cuts to be held before Osborne’s autumn statement on 25 November. This is seen as the last opportunity for the chancellor to “tweak” the cuts, which are due to come into effect next April. A debate tabled by the backbench business committee would make it easier for Tory MPs with doubts about the cuts to speak out.

Allen, who replaced Andrew Lansley as Tory MP for Cambridgeshire South in May, was heard in silence as she tore into the government over its tax credit plans. Allen, who said she decided to enter parliament after she feared that Britain was on the verge of a break up during the 2011 London riots, accused the government of naivety in claiming low-paid workers could easily earn more by working extra hours.

The MP also challenged ministers’ claims that workers will not lose out if all tax and benefit changes are considered over the lifetime of this parliament. “People on the breadline cannot wait for the parliament to pass along. For many, every day living is hand-to-mouth living. Madam deputy speaker, I suspect you and I could weather such a transition period. We could pull our belts in. But many of the families affected by these proposed changes do not have this luxury. Choosing whether to eat or heat is not a luxury … Conservatives pride themselves on living within their means, of cutting their cloth. Bu what if there is no cloth left to cut?”

A Lib Dem spokesman said Farron had instructed a heavy whip on his peers to back the fatal motion. Some opposition peers are anxious they may be over-reaching their constitutional powers by challenging a main part of the government’s financial programme.

Opposition peers recognise that they can defeat the government repeatedly and almost at will as long as Lib Dem peers unite with Labour and a few crossbenchers to defeat the Tories.

Farron also believes that Lib Dem peers are free to throw aside constitutional conventions since the government has set its face against reform of the Lords.



Tax credits: what are they and who benefits? Read more

George Osborne fended off Conservative MPs anxious at the proposed cuts to tax credits at a private meeting of the party’s 1922 backbench committee on Monday by insisting the changes have to go ahead and warning that if he had not acted, £15bn of spending cuts would have to be found elsewhere.

In a Treasury analysis released to coincide with the backbenchers’ meeting, the government said that without action, spending on tax credits would have risen to £40bn by 2016-17, a £10bn increase from 2010-11 and £15bn lower than now forecast as a result of the cuts introduced by Osborne in the summer budget.

By custom and practice, the peers do not challenge financial measures, but Farron has been arguing that the specific tax credits measure was not in the Conservative party manifesto and was even specifically denied by David Cameron in a leaders’ TV election debate, after the Guardian revealed a document leaked by the Lib Dems showing that the government had been considering cuts to tax credits.