NEWPORT East AM John Griffiths and Jayne Bryant, assembly candidate for Newport West, have slammed the UK Government for its plans to cut tax credits.

Currently people receive the maximum level of tax credits if their annual household income is below £6,420 but from April, this threshold figure will go down to £3,850.

Mr Griffiths said many of his constituents will be affected by the changes.

He said: "Since their introduction in the early 2000s, tax credits have played a key role in securing one of the biggest reductions in child poverty since the Second World War.

"In my constituency of Newport East, nearly 4,000 working families with children receive tax credits, many of whom will be affected by the UK Government’s planned changes to tax credits."

Ms Bryant said: “I strongly oppose the Tory government’s plan to cut tax credits – a move which will hit families in Newport.

"I was also appalled by the patronising comments made by health secretary Jeremy Hunt that suggested that cuts to tax credits will in some way make people work harder – this sort of pathetic pontificating is deeply insulting to thousands of working families in Newport who receive vital support through tax credits.”

Mr Griffiths and Ms Bryant's comments follow a warning from the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) that the tax credit reductions will leave three million British families £1,000 worse off.

But a spokesman for the UK treasury said the reforms are "fair and necessary" and will take tax credit spending back to 2008 levels.

They said "most working households" will be better off once all welfare reforms have come into force by 2017.

The spokesman said: "We’re determined to move Britain from a low wage, high tax, high welfare economy, to a higher wage, lower tax and lower welfare economy where work will always pay more than a life on benefits.

"Alongside this, our new National Living Wage is expected to be worth over £9 an hour by 2020 and will mean pay rises of up to £5,000 for low-paid workers.

"Some 2.7 million people are expected to benefit directly and the independent Office for Budget Responsibility estimates six million in total will see pay rises as the living wage pushes pay higher up the income scale."