Succession of Conservatives speak out in Commons as Labour chairman of work and pensions select committee urges minister to rethink cuts

Frank Field, the chairman of the work and pensions select committee, has been supported by a succession of Tory MPs as he urged the government not to go ahead with “terrifying” changes to tax credits next April.

The Labour MP said the government should accept that those most damaged by the proposals were those who had done the right thing – and said ministers should come up with a more modest package that would only reduce tax credits for new claimants.

Field told MPs in a Commons debate on the issue: “Talking to constituents you cannot come away without being incredibly conscious of the fears people are suffering. People we should be saluting and cheering are sick with worry about how they will make ends meet, whether they are going to lose their homes, whether the interest on their mortgages can be repaid, let alone protecting their children.”

Field told the chancellor, George Osborne, he could change his image and show he was a serious tax and benefit reformer.

He said the government had to recognise there was no cost-free way to make such changes, and the government might have to accept that the budget surplus would be achieved more slowly than planned.

But he added that the government might not have realised what resources could be unlocked by reducing pension tax relief.

Stephen McPartland, Conservative MP for Stevenage, and one of the first Tory MPs to raised objections to the tax credit cuts, said: “The £1,200 cut is too much. It is too far.” He said he could not believe the Treasury understood the impact of its cuts.

He said he disagreed with Lords decision to block the statutory instrument that introduced the cuts to tax credits but said he wanted the debate in the future “not to focus on constitutional issues but on the loss of income”. McPartland urged the Treasury to work with him to look at alternatives to the proposed changes.

Guto Bebb, Conservative MP for Aberconwy, said the “decision to cut so quickly and I am afraid so deeply” was problematic. He criticised the discrepancy in the timing between the rise in the national minimum wage at the end of the parliament and cuts in the tax credits coming into force this April.

He said he was shocked by crass comments by fellow Tory MPs who claimed tax credit recipients could make up the loss by working extra hours. He pointed out that those in work would need to find 15 hours extra work to make up the loss of £30 tax credit income, and not the two hours some Conservative MPs had suggested. Bebb said the reduction in work incentives in the reforms was incredibly disappointing.

Neil Parish, Conservative MP for Tiverton and Honiton, said: “We have lost our way a little, but we can come back from the wilderness. It is absolutely fundamental that people who work are better off than those who don’t. If we are not careful we will drive people back to benefit and take us in the opposite direction of what we want.”

He added: “The Conservative party’s reputation is at stake.”

Heidi Allen, Tory MP for South Cambridgeshire, said she had received hundreds of letters from constituents asking for the government to rethink.

David Davis, another senior backbencher, also called for any reformed proposals to be passed by a full bill and not a statutory instrument.