REFORMS to the tax credit system will hit thousands of families in Brighton and Hove hard, an MP has warned.

Hove MP Peter Kyle has said that the lives of hard-working families in the city could get “much worse” if predicted welfare reforms are brought in.

But Conservative MP Simon Kirby said that it will take a decade to restore the welfare system to “sanity” after “spiralling far out of control” for years under the Labour administration.

Prime Minister David Cameron has indicated that the system, introduced under Labour leader Tony Blair in 2003, is set for an overhaul in the July 8 budget as his party seeks to cut a further £12 billion from the welfare budget.

He clashed with Harriet Harman over the issue during Prime Minister’s Questions with the acting Labour leader claiming firms would have to increase wages by 25 per cent to meet the shortfall.

The exact details of any overhaul of the system have yet to be released.

But figures revealed by Labour indicate that the number of families in Brighton and Hove receiving either working tax credit or child tax credit currently stands at 14,900, with two-thirds of those families classed as in work.

There are currently 26,000 children in families receiving one or both of the benefits in the city.

Mr Kyle said: “People who have been struggling for the past five years are now worried things are about to get much worse.

“David Cameron needs to come clean about who the Tories are going to hit with these cuts.

“If these cuts are targeted at the people who are going out to work but are still living in poverty, the Tories will have to answer to the people who voted for them that did so believing they offered aspiration.”

Mr Kirby MP said: “Reforming the damaging culture of welfare dependency and ensuring that work pays has been central to the Government’s mission to make Britain fit for the future and to restore fairness to the system.

“Rest assured, however, as the Government works to get the overall benefits bill under control, it will always operate on the very clear principle that it will protect the most vulnerable.

“Welfare reform is fundamentally about opportunity and changing lives. It is about supporting families to move from dependence to independence.”