A WORKING Port family say they might be better off on the dole because of a controversial change that is supposed to encourage people to find jobs.

Mark Payne, his partner Agnes McFadyen and their three youngsters will lose £665 a year when they are transferred from Child Tax Credit to Universal Credit.

The UK Government insists that, on average, working couples will be better off under the new system.

But Mark said: “Things are hard enough as it is with everything going up in price, but this is going to make it worse.

“We want to work.

“We don’t want to live off benefits, but what the government says about helping working families is a big con. We’re working hard and we’re getting clobbered like this.” Mark and Agnes, from Highholm Street, have an 11-year-old son and two daughters aged nine and two.

Mark is a full-time driver for a supermarket home delivery service, earning just under £14,000 a year, while Agnes works 11.5 hours at a local supermarket each week and earns £7.28 an hour.

They currently receive child tax credit of £180 a week, but, under Universal Credit, this would be reduced by £12.80 a week — a whopping cut of £665.47 a year.

Mark is a member of the shopworkers’ union, Usdaw, and recently took part in a demonstration it staged against Universal Credit at the House of Commons.

He said: “I was raging when the union told me how we would be affected.

“I’ve still not received a letter from the government about it. We would lose even more if Agnes worked longer hours — it’s ridiculous.” Mark met Inverclyde MP Iain McKenzie at the Commons demo.

The MP said claimants will be put off from working longer hours and potential second earners from working at all, perpetuating the poverty trap for families on low pay.

Mr McKenzie said: “While I support the principle of Universal Credit, which should make it easier for people who are unemployed to move into some work, I am calling on the government to change rules that mean working people will only be allowed to keep 24p in every extra pound they earn.” A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions today declined to comment on the Payne case, but said: “The simpler Universal Credit will make it easier for people to move off benefits and into work, and will ensure work always pays.”