More than a million universal credit payments cut over the past year because of historical overpaid tax credits

Published

2 years ago

March 23, 2023

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The government is cutting benefit payments to some of Britain’s poorest families or threatening them with debt collectors in a raid that is “plunging people into poverty”.

More than a million people have had their universal credit payments cut over the past year because they were overpaid tax credits in the past by HMRC.

Some of these debts are decades-old and in many cases the claimant was not at fault for the overpayment or aware that the debt existed.

Campaigners and MPs called on the government to immediately pause the deductions, an approach that they warned was causing widespread destitution at a time when people are already struggling with the cost-of-living crisis.

Millions docked because of historical overpayments

Official figures obtained by Sky News show that last year 1.3 million universal credit claimants had payments docked because of historical tax credit overpayments.

It’s a figure that’s been on the rise.

In total, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) deducted £372.576m from claimants on HMRC’s behalf.

Tax credits were introduced in 1999 by the then Labour government to encourage people into work by offering support payments to parents and those on low incomes.

The system is being phased out and people on tax credits will all have moved to Universal Credit by the end of next year.

In 2014 the Treasury agreed with the DWP that, as previous tax credit claimants moved onto Universal Credit, their old tax credit debts would be transferred and collected under the new system.

Blaming claimants for HMRC errors

While HMRC maintains that many of these erroneous payments are down to fraud or errors made by the claimant, a significant number are attributable to errors made by officials.

Charities warned that in some cases HMRC was blaming claimants for errors of its own making.

Michelle Welch from Bromley, south London, is one such case. She was facing deductions of £20 a month to recover an eight-year-old debt of £2,379.26.

The mother of three, who now works part-time at a British Heart Foundation charity shop, was hospitalised in October 2015 after suffering a mental health crisis.

Although a support officer telephoned HMRC to explain that she was no longer caring for her three children, HMRC did not stop the payments and the money continued being paid into a bank account that her partner was accessing to support her children.

After multiple attempts to notify the agency, the payments eventually stopped on 28 January 2016.

Years later, in August 2021, HMRC wrote to Ms Welch demanding that she repay the money the agency overpaid in the interim. They claimed she failed to notify them of her change in circumstances in time and her universal credit was docked as a result.

Ms Welch’s multiple appeals were rejected.

“I’m just living day by day. I can’t save. I can’t go out… I could put that extra money on gas and electric,” she said.

“I just feel like I’m not getting anywhere. I’m not getting anywhere fast.”

After Sky News intervened, HMRC agreed that Ms Welch was not at fault and has now cancelled the debt.

“We apologise to Ms Welch for the inconvenience and upset caused by our mistake,” HMRC said. “We’ve acted to correct her payments and a redress payment will be made.”

Ms Welch said her dealings with HMRC and DWP had left her feeling dejected, ignored and stuck in what was a difficult time in her life.

“It’s hard for a mother to give up one child let alone three because they’re mentally unwell. It wasn’t an easy thing to do. [It takes me back to] a place I would never want to be in again. It makes me feel ashamed and terrible.

“I busy myself so that I don’t have to think back to what I went through and what my children went through. It’s something I should talk to a psychiatrist about, not people I don’t know [at HMRC and DWP].”

Not an isolated case

Sky News spoke to dozens of claimants who said they were paying back debts they do not believe, or did not realise, they owed.

Many struggled to get a clear breakdown or explanation from HMRC when they challenged the demands for payment.

Vicky Timlin, from Cheltenham, ended a tax credit claim in September 2021 after moving in with a partner.

She was then told to repay back £909.29 that had been overpaid to her. When she sought an explanation, an HMRC representative told her that the overpayment could only be explained by a “computer glitch” but she would have to repay it regardless.

Ms Timlin is not claiming Universal Credit so her payments have not been docked.

However, HMRC has warned her that the debt will be recouped through any future universal credit claim. Her debt has now been passed onto a private debt collection agency and she is on a payment plan for the next seven years.

Sky News understands that 29,000 cases are now being handled by private debt collection agencies.

“I felt completely helpless. I got off the phone and I was in absolute floods of tears because I just felt like this is so unfair.

“Why have I got to pay this money because of a computer glitch and there was literally nothing that I can do about it and they didn’t seem to care at all,” she said.

“They shouldn’t be doing it to people. They need to be able to explain to people properly why they owe this money and not give them different excuses every time.”

HMRC accepted that Vicky did nothing wrong and apologised for its failure to clearly explain the debt to Ms Timlin.

It maintained that she had been overpaid because previous re-calculations of her entitlement had triggered the system to generate duplicate payments.

It said this was a feature of the system and that these overpayments would have balanced out across the remainder of the financial year had she continued with the claim.

“To ensure customers receive regular payments of a similar amount, tax credits awards are calculated across the 12-month financial year,” HMRC said.

“Customers are required to tell us of any change in circumstances and when they do, awards are recalculated and balanced across the remainder of the period. This means when a claim ceases during the financial year, in some instances an overpayment may be due.”

Official errors disguised

Official reports published by HMRC suggest that errors on the part of officials make up a very small proportion of overpayments, compared to fraud and errors on the part of claimants.

However, charities pointed out that in many cases officials were contributing to errors by providing poor advice on the phone. In the case of Ms Welch, official error was disguised as a claimant error.

Campaigners say the system is causing widespread distress at a time when the cost-of-living crisis is already driving families into poverty.

Food bank visitors in debt to the government

The Trussell Trust, which oversees a network of more than 1,300 food banks across the UK, has said the vast majority of its visitors were in debt to the government.

MPs from across the political spectrum have urged the government to pause collections while the cost-of-living crisis is still raging.

Stephen Timms, MP for East Ham and chair of the work and pensions select committee, said: “People are completely unaware of these debts when suddenly money starts getting taken out of their Universal Credit monthly payments and, in a cost-of-living crisis with inflation running at current levels, that’s causing real hardship for people.

“So my select a committee, which is an all-party committee with a Conservative majority, recommended that the government should pause these deductions while inflation is running at its current level.

“Unfortunately, the government rejected that recommendation, but I think that would be very helpful just to support people through this really, really difficult time.”

Business

UK-US pact neither a free-trade agreement nor broad trade deal of Brexiteer dreams

Published

6 hours ago

May 9, 2025

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UK-US pact neither a free-trade agreement nor broad trade deal of Brexiteer dreams

Sir Keir Starmer was at home in Downing Street, watching Arsenal lose in the Champions League, when he got a call from Donald Trump that he thought presented the chance to snatch victory from the jaws of trading defeat.

The president’s call was a characteristic last-minute flex intended to squeeze a little more out of the prime minister.

It was enough to persuade Sir Keir and his business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, dining with industry bosses across London at Mansion House, that they had to seize the opportunity.

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The result, hurriedly announced via presidential conference call, is not the broad trade deal of Brexiteer dreams, and is certainly not a free-trade agreement.

It’s a narrow agreement that secures immediate relief for a handful of sectors most threatened by Mr Trump’s swingeing tariffs, with a promise of a broader renegotiation of “reciprocal” 10% tariffs to come.

Most pressing was the car industry, which Mr Reynolds said was facing imminent announcements of “very difficult news” at Britain’s biggest brands, including Jaguar Land Rover, which sounds like code for redundancies.

In place of the 25% tariffs imposed last month, a 10% tariff will apply to a quota of 100,000 vehicles a year, less than the 111,000 exported to the US in 2024, but close enough for a deal.

It still leaves the car sector far worse off than it was before “liberation day”, but, with one in four exports crossing the Atlantic, ministers reason it’s better than no deal, and crucially offers more favourable terms than any major US trading partner can claim.

For steel and aluminium zero tariffs were secured, along with what sounds like a commitment to work with the US to prevent Chinese dumping. That is a clear win and fundamental for the ailing industries in Britain, though modest in broad terms, with US exports worth only around £400m a year.

In exchange, the UK has had to open up access to food and agricultural products, starting with beef and ethanol, used for fuel and food production.

In place of tariff quotas on beef that applied on either side (12% in the UK and 20% in America) 13,000 tonnes of beef can flow tariff-free in either direction, around 1.5% of the UK market.

The biggest wins

Crucially, sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) production standards that apply to food and animal products, and prevent the sale of hormone-treated meat, will remain. Mr Trump even suggested the US was moving towards “no chemical” European standards.

This may be among the biggest wins, as it leaves open the prospect of an easing of SPS checks on trade with the European Union, a valuable reduction in red tape that is the UK’s priority in reset negotiations with Brussels.

Farmers also believe the US offers an opportunity for their high-quality, grass-fed beef, though there is concern that the near-doubling of ethanol quotas is a threat to domestic production.

Technology deals to come?

There were broad commitments to do deals on technology, AI and an “economic security blanket”, and much hope rests on the US’s promise of “preferential terms” when it comes to pharmaceuticals and other sectors.

There was no mention of proposed film tariffs, still unclear even in the Oval Office.

Taken together, officials describe these moves as “banking sectoral wins” while they continue to try and negotiate down the remaining tariffs.

The challenge from here is that Mr Trump’s “reciprocal” tariff is not reciprocal at all. As commerce secretary Howard Lutnick proudly pointed out in the Oval Office, tariffs on US trade have fallen to less than 2%, while the UK’s have risen to 10%.

As a consequence, UK exporters remain in a materially worse position than they were at the start of April, though better than it was before the president’s call, and for now, several British industries have secured concessions that no other country can claim.

From a protectionist, capricious president, this might well be the best deal on offer.

Quite what incentive Mr Trump will have to renegotiate the blanket tariff, and what the UK has left to give up by way of compromise, remains to be seen. Sir Keir will hope that, unlike the vanquished Arsenal, he can turn it round in the second leg.

Business

Energy customers secure compensation for overcharging error

Published

8 hours ago

May 9, 2025

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Energy customers secure compensation for overcharging error

Tens of thousands of household energy customers have secured payouts after a compliance review found they had been overcharged.

The industry regulator said that 10 suppliers had handed over compensation and goodwill payments to just over 34,000 customers. The total came to around £7m.

Ofgem said those affected, between January 2019 and September last year, had more than one electricity meter point at their property recording energy usage.

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It explained that while suppliers were allowed to apply multiple standing charges for homes with multiple electricity meters, it meant that some were “erroneously charged more than is allowed under the price cap when combined with unit rates”.

The companies affected were revealed as E.ON Next, Ecotricity, EDF Energy, Octopus Energy, Outfox The Market,
OVO Energy, Rebel Energy [no longer trading], So Energy, Tru Energy and Utility Warehouse.

Of those, Octopus Energy accounted for the majority of the customers hit.

Ofgem said that the near-21,000 customers impacted had received compensation of £2.6m and goodwill payments of almost £550,000.

The redress was revealed at a time when energy bills remain elevated and debts at record levels in the wake of the 2022 price shock caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Higher wholesale natural gas prices over the winter months meant that the price cap actually rose in April when a decline would normally be seen.

The latest forecasts suggest, however, that bills should start to decline for the foreseeable future.

Charlotte Friel, director of retail pricing and systems at Ofgem, said of its compliance operation: “Our duty is to protect energy consumers, and we set the price cap for that very reason so customers don’t pay a higher amount for their energy than they should.

“We expect all suppliers to have robust processes in place so they can bill their customers accurately. While it’s clear that on this occasion errors were made, thankfully, the issues were promptly resolved, and customers are being refunded.”

The watchdog added that all ten suppliers had updated their systems and processes to prevent the error occurring in future.

Business

Interest rate cut to 4.25% by Bank of England

Published

1 day ago

May 8, 2025

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Interest rate cut to 4.25% by Bank of England

The Bank of England has cut interest rates from 4.5% to 4.25%, citing Donald Trump’s trade war as one of the key reasons for the reduction in borrowing costs.

In a decision taken shortly before the official confirmation of a trade deal between Britain and the United States, the Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) voted to reduce borrowing costs in the UK, saying the economy would be slightly weaker and inflation lower in part as a result of higher tariffs.

However, it stopped short of predicting that the trade war would trigger a recession.

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Further rate cuts are expected in the coming months, though there remains some uncertainty about how fast and how far the MPC will cut – since it was split three ways on this latest vote.

Two members of the nine-person MPC voted to reduce rates by even more today, taking them down to 4%. But another two on the committee voted not to cut them at all, leaving them instead at 4.5%.

In the event, five members voted for the quarter point cut – enough to tip the balance – with the accompanying minutes saying that while “the current impact of the global trade news should not be overstated, the news was sufficient for those members to judge that a reduction in Bank Rare was warranted.”

Even so, the Bank’s analysis suggests that while higher tariffs were likely to depress global and UK economic growth, and help push down inflation, the impact would be relatively minor, with growth only 0.3% lower and inflation only 0.2% lower.

Governor, Andrew Bailey, said: “Inflationary pressures have continued to ease, so we’ve been able to cut rates again today.

“The past few weeks have shown how unpredictable the global economy can be. That’s why we need to stick to a gradual and careful approach to further rate cuts. Ensuring low and stable inflation is our top priority.”

The Bank raised its forecast for UK economic growth this year from 0.75% to 1%, but said that was primarily because of unexpectedly strong output in the first quarter.

In fact, underlying economic growth remains weak at just 0.1% a quarter.

It said that while inflation was expected to rise further in the coming months, peaking at 3.5% in the third quarter, it would drop down thereafter, settling at just below 2% towards the end of next year.