Working Families Tax Credit (Hansard, 18 December 2000)

§ Mr. Alexander
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many calls have been received by the Working Families Tax Credit Hotline to date(a) nationally and (b) in Scotland. [142691]

§ Dawn Primarolo
The Working Families Tax Credit (WFTC) helpline, and the response line, together handled about 8.4 million calls up to the end of November 2000.
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A separate count of calls from Scotland is not available, but about 9.5 per cent. of WFTC awards are to families in Scotland.

§ Mr. Alexander
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to evaluate the impact of the Working Families Tax Credit. [143125]

§ Dawn Primarolo
A comprehensive programme of evaluation is in progress. The programme of work spans several years and comprises qualitative and quantitative research and analysis.

§ Mr. Alexander
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the impact of the Working Families Tax Credit on increasing the financial incentives for women to work. [143166]

§ Dawn Primarolo
The WFTC provides support for low and middle income working families with children.
The WFTC has been of particular benefit to lone parents, 90 per cent. of whom are women, helping to tackle poverty and support lone parents as they move off benefit and into work.
Working Families Tax Credit, along with other tax and benefit reforms implemented during this Parliament, delivers a Minimum Income Guarantee of £208 per week for families working 35 hours a week and £152 for families working 16 hours a week. 50 per cent. of WFTC recipients are lone mothers and another 10 per cent. are couples where the woman is the main earner.
On average, families are £30 a week better off on WFTC than on Family Credit and 35 per cent. more lone parents are receiving WFTC compared to Family Credit. The net income for a lone mother with two children is now £30 higher than it was under Family Credit.
In addition, the Childcare Tax Credit reimburses up to 70 per cent. of parents' eligible child care costs, thereby tackling one of the main obstacles for women wanting to work. Over 100,000 lone parent families are now receiving the Childcare Tax Credit, more than twice the number that benefited from the child care disregard in Family Credit.