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Tax & Benefits

Sometimes as an MP you can feel like something half way between an Ombudsman and a social worker – both of which roles I greatly enjoy. I had surgeries in Chippenham and Corsham last Saturday, Wootton Bassett and Malmesbury the week before, and 30 or so constituents called in with queries varying from:- Working Tax Credits, long-term care of a disabled person; Porton Down Tests compensation, housing, central heating grants, home education, immigration, planning, Europe, political correctness, and a host of others. Very few of these issues are anything directly to do with being an MP, but I am happy to see what I can do to help anyhow. When people feel frustrated with poor official organisations, or bewildered by the complexity of modern regulations and bureaucracy, or at the end of their tether one way or another, they very often (quite correctly) turn to the MP for help.

The previous day I had had a meeting with Nationwide in Swindon who told me of the public’s lack of understanding of many of their products, and general mystification with the modern financial world; and then I was in Devizes taking part in the Carers Rights Campaign Action Day. I strongly support carers of all kinds, who quite apart from anything else are relieving the State of a huge potential burden of care, amounting we were told to some £87 billion. Here in North Wiltshire there are 7355 carers, many of them juggling work and caring responsibilities. I salute them for all they do, very often under very difficult circumstances.

It was a lively meeting which ironed out quite a few queries and ideas over the morning. But one issue which became very obvious is that too few people know about, or fully understand, the various benefits to which they are entitled. Carers Allowance, Council Tax discount, Pension Credit, Housing Benefit. All come with a maze of regulations and myriad forms. I had to admit to the meeting that many benefits are now so complex that when someone consults me in my surgeries about them, for fear of giving the wrong advice, I very often refer the constituent to the true experts on all of this, namely the Citizens Advice Bureau!

Benefits should be clear, fair, and accessible to all who genuinely need them. And much of the current benefits system fails on all three counts. Services provided by central government have become increasingly complex, the small print ever smaller, remarkably few people claiming all they are perfectly entitled to, and a few others disgracefully claiming a few things to which they demonstrably are not entitled.

I have always had a dream of a system of tax and benefits under which each of us declares our financial situation to the State, those with income then paying their taxes duly, those without drawing down whatever benefits to which they are entitled. Leonardo da Vinci used to hold open house in Florence, his guests throwing money, food or other spare items into a big basket; other friends in need helping themselves on some occasions. It is said that Leonardo always made a decent profit, with more people giving than taking. If only we could organise our tax and benefits system along the same lines!

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