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Labour peer Baroness Hollis has died aged 77 three years after scoring a victory over cruel Tax Credit cuts.

Patricia Hollis, a former university lecturer, council leader and peer for almost three decades, succumbed to a long illness surrounded by family at home, her House of Lords colleagues announced today.

It comes three years after she led a Lords revolt against Tory plans to slice billions off Tax Credits for low-income families.

David Cameron's government was defeated after the peer gave a passionate speech saying: "We can be supportive of the Government . Or we can be supportive instead of those three million families facing letters at Christmas, telling them on average they will lose £1,300-a-year."

The vote forced Chancellor George Osborne to row back on the cuts - although he kept many other cuts in newer benefit Universal Credit which have now caused a political furore.

Colleagues today paid tribute to Baroness Hollis' "powerful" commitment to the poor and needy.

Labour's leader in the House of Lords Angela Smith said: "Patricia was fearless in her pursuit of fairness.

"Facts were her weapons and her deep personal commitment to tackle discrimination and poverty gained wider public attention with her incredible speech on plans to cut tax credits.

“Patricia was also good fun, and happy to give me advice on everything from House of Lords procedure to clothes – advice that was both wise and welcome.

"She bore her last illness with immense courage, and we will all share in the pride of her family for all that she achieved and all that she was.”

A lecturer and writer who won the prestigious Orwell Prize, Patricia Hollis was involved in the US civil rights movement before entering politics as a Norwich city councillor in 1968.

Sign our Universal Credit petition The Mirror are demanding a halt to the expansion of Universal Credit and for a review to take place. We say there are three options: Redesign UC to be fit for purpose

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She became the leader of Norwich City Council in 1983 and was appointed a Labour peer in 1990.

She later served as a Work and Pensions Minister for four years from 2001 to 2005 under Tony Blair's government.

The peer's partner Lord Howarth, also a Labour peer, said: "We are hugely proud of Patricia, both as a person and as a politician.

"Her commitment to serving the interests of the poor and disadvantaged was unwavering and powerfully effective.

"And she was a great champion of Norwich, the city she led and loved."

READ: Baroness Hollis' stirring 2015 Lords speech against Tax Credit cuts

We can be supportive of the Government.. or we can be supportive instead of those 3 million families facing letters at Christmas telling them that on average they will lose up to around ​£1,300 a year, a letter that will take away 10% of their income on average.

That is our choice.

Those families believed us when we all said that work was the best route out of poverty and that work would always pay.

They believed the Prime Minister when he promised that tax credits - and they are one package - would not be touched.

But why do people need tax credits? There is a lot of misunderstanding about this.

If the House will allow me, consider two women in a call centre: one is single, working 35 hours a week, who from April earns £13,000 a year for herself, and the other, a deserted mother with two young children, managing 25 hours a week, earns £9,000 a year for the three of them.

The Government are completely right that we should certainly not subsidise employers’ low pay.

But no employer could pay the deserted mother twice as much per hour as the single woman on the next phone in the call centre to make up for her family’s circumstances.

The employer cannot do that and it is not reasonable to ask it to do so.

That is the job of tax credits. They reflect family circumstances, which an employer cannot reasonably do.

In 1997, some 43% of single parents worked. That figure is now 65%—a 50% increase—partly because tax credits made work pay. That was our contract with the working mother, and she has done everything that we asked.

Now, we will send her a letter at Christmas telling her that we are taking away some £1,300.

Her life is hard.

She needs financial stability in which to bring up her children.

She needs transitional protection, so that the cuts affect only new claimants who have not built their lives around the protection that tax credits currently offer.

National newspapers from the Daily Telegraph to the Sun are asking the Government to think again before those letters arrive at Christmas, as are the think tanks.

The IFS says that the Treasury’s claims are “arithmetically impossible”, yet those letters will still arrive at Christmas.

Members of the Conservative Party, including Members of this House, have expressed their disquiet as the cuts are too hard and being made too fast, yet those letters will still arrive at Christmas.

We may be told - perhaps, among others, by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, who has gone on record as saying this - that the Commons has made its position clear three times: when it passed the Budget, then with this statutory instrument, and again in last week’s general debate on tax credits.

However, is that right?

What happens when the Commons has, in my view, made its decision based on incomplete information, some of which is only now becoming available?

The Government insist that there is no alternative to these cuts, which on average will take £1,300 from 3 million poor families.

However, there is an alternative.

We can and should offer transitional protection to families who currently count on tax credits.

They include single parents, the self-employed - whose median wage, incidentally, is £10,000 a year - families with disabled children and carers.

We could protect them but not new claimants and those newly on universal credit....

Let the final words rest with what families themselves say as they face those Christmas letters.

Angela from Stevenage says: “I already work 40 hours a week on minimum wage doing two jobs around my children.

"I cannot believe that this is actually going to happen. I am terrified.

"We are not scroungers.

"We work unbelievably hard just to keep going and, once again, we are being punished for trying to earn a living wage”.

She will lose £1,643 a year after she gets that Christmas letter.

Sian from Basingstoke writes: “My husband works full time as a firefighter. We have four children. We won’t survive”.

In her Christmas letter, she stands to lose £2,914.

Rachel, from Milton Keynes, says: “It probably means that, as parents, we will skip a few extra meals to ensure our children eat”.

In her Christmas letter, she stands to lose £2,005.

Finally, we have Tony and Jacinta Goode, from my city of Norwich.

He is in full-time work, earning above the living wage, and she is the carer of two substantially disabled children.

They are exhausted. Their Christmas letter will tell them that they will lose £60 a week, or £3,120 a year. That is £3,120 from a family where he is in full-time work and she is caring for two disabled children.

We do not need to do this to them.