Philip Dunne today slammed the Government after it admitted to making yet another tax credit error that has affected, by the Government's own admission, 160,000 awards to people up and down the country, including in Shropshire.Philip Dunne, MP for Ludlow, today slammed the Government after it admitted to making yet another tax credit error that has affected, by the Government's own admission, 160,000 awards to people up and down the country, including in Shropshire.

In a letter to Mr Dunne from HM Treasury, the Government admitted an administrative error that 'officials have not followed the current administrative procedure when reopening a tax credit award where new information came to light after the award had been finished and closed.' This affects awards made for 2003/2004 and 2004/2005.

Mr Dunne said: "Earlier this year, the Public Accounts Committee of which I am a member, warned that the tax credits system suffers from the highest rates of error and fraud anywhere in Government. This is yet further evidence that the Treasury has still not developed an adequate response to the unacceptable levels of error in the scheme.

"Some of the most vulnerable of my constituents face considerable hardship in being pursued to repay now over-payments made by HMRC in earlier years.

"This scheme was set up as Gordon Brown's flagship project. It has never worked properly with one third of all awards being wrong."