Autumn Statement: Rich will be hit harder than the poor The Chancellor said working people would be helped by a move to scrap the planned 3p rise in fuel duty and lifting the personal allowance, handing £47 a year to basic and higher rate taxpayers. However, Labour points out that increasing benefits by just one per cent - lower than inflation - will hit more working people than the unemployed. Ed Balls, the Shadow Chancellor, said it was "dishonest" of Mr Osborne to claim everyone is "in it together." "George Osborne gave the impression that the only people who are losing are people who are not in work," he said. He talks about them as the people whose curtains are drawn while working person goes to work. Sixty per cent of people hit are in work with working tax credit or child tax credit. He's got to be truthful about what he's doing. He's hitting middle income families, in their pockets and in their purses, while he's cutting taxes at the top. That's not fair, that's not "we're all in it together."" Conservative MPs rounded on the BBC Today programme's interviewers on Twitter for giving Mr Osborne a tougher time than his Labour opposite. Dan Byles, MP for North Warwickshire, said objected to the Chancellor being "badgered and shouted down" by the presenter, Evan Davis. Baroness Jenkin, a Tory peer, said it appeared to be a "very unedifying interview/spat" and called on Mr Davis to "let the man speak." Another Conservative, Claire Perry, MP for Devizes, urged the BBC presenter to "stop interrupting and shouting down," adding "your mother would be disgusted." David Cameron backed up his Chancellor's claims that the Autumn Statement supports people who work hard. "What this Autumn Statement and what this Government is all about is being on the side of people who want to work hard and want to get on," he told the BBC. By lifting the personal allowance - the amount of money you can earn before you pay any income tax - very close now to our goal of £10,000, is hugely helpful to working people. It means that someone on the minimum wage that works full time, working hard, we've halved their income tax bill under this Government, and clearly by cancelling the 3p increase in fuel duty, we're helping with people who have to use their cars to get to work.