EAST Lancashire MPs have gone to war over the government's new working families tax credit.

Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown launched a £12 million advertising campaign to boost the scheme aimed at ending child poverty.

Hyndburn Labour MP Greg Pope said it would provide "a much better deal for working families" in the area but Ribble Valley Tory Nigel Evans said it would penalise families who care for their own children at home and hammer middle income families. Government whip Mr Pope said thousands of East Lancashire families would benefit from a guaranteed take home pay of £200 a week or £10,000 a year for any family with a full time worker and that no family in the area earning less than £235 a week - £12,000 a year - would pay income tax at all. He said a family earning £13,000 a year would be up to £50 a week better off and the new system would give 1.5 million families nationwide £67 a week - £24 a week more than the family credit social security benefit it replaces.

But Tory front bencher Mr Evans said the credit would be a failure, saying: "It is biased in favour of institutionalised child care, penalising families who care for their own children at home.

"Goverment claims that it will help to reduce poverty are misleading and inaccurate.

"A new poverty trap will be created as middle income families who earn a bit more through overtime or whose salaries are increased will be heavily penalised."

He claimed that employers would be deterred from taking on workers because of the cost of administering the working families tax credit and the £12 million spent on the advertising campaign could be better spent on proper measures to tackle poverty.

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