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DAVID CAMERON was accused of robbing Britain’s poorest families yesterday after backing cuts to in-work benefits.
Acting Labour leader Harriet Harman made the charge over the Tory PM’s plans to cut tax credits for three million low-paid workers.
Mr Cameron claimed on Monday that welfare spending was robbing the next generation, but Ms Harman said he was “robbing from children who are in families who are facing tax credit cuts.”
The average family would lose £1,400-a-year if the tax credits budget was cut by £5 billion, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Ms Harman pointed out the minimum wage would need to be raised by 25 per cent overnight to compensate for the cut.
She predicted that Mr Cameron would not take action to raise wages.
“I know you don’t have to budget, but many families do,” she said.
“What you don’t seem to understand is these are people who are in work, who are going out to work providing for themselves and their children.
“Millions of families with children are going to be worse off.
“You say you are tackling low pay — you’re not. You’re attacking the low-paid. So much for the party of working people.”
Mr Cameron claimed the he had to cut welfare spending because the “last government didn’t budget for the country” — apparently forgetting that he had been PM for the past five years.
He then went one step further by saying that, like Greece, Britain would be left “teetering on the brink” of bankruptcy without cuts.