Government 'tried to hide pay fall'

Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith has accused the Government of trying to hide figures showing that take-home pay has fallen as a result of Chancellor Gordon Brown's tax changes.

The value of the average pay-cheque fell by 1.3% in April after taking into account the effect of higher National Insurance contributions and inflation.

And the drop in real income for workers in the private sector was an even larger 1.9%, according to figures from the Office of National Statistics.

The figures were revealed by The Business newspaper, which said that the ONS had originally published incorrect statistics suggesting that the overall tax burden fell in April.

The revised figures were "buried" in a correction to the Tax and Price Index on the ONS website, the paper said.

Mr Duncan Smith told the Sky News programme Sunday with Adam Boulton: "The figures show incomes falling for the first time under this Government.

"This was pushed out very quietly on the back of a website as a correction to something that was launched in a press release which didn't suggest that.

"Now we see average incomes have actually fallen by up to £500 a year for some people."

According to The Business, the overall impact of changes to taxes and benefits introduced in April was the equivalent of a £475 pay cut for someone on a salary of £25,000.

An ONS spokesman told the paper: "The revisions are due to a shortfall in the data on National Insurance contributions supplied for the calculation of the Tax and Price Index."

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