HARD-WORKING Brits shared their stories yesterday of anguish and anger at the Tories’ tax credit cuts, urging Lords to throw out the vicious changes.

Business-owners, single mothers, artists and disabled entrepreneurs were some of the 3.2 million people expected to be left struggling to make ends meet when the policy comes into force next April.

They responded to a drive by the People’s Assembly, which asked anyone who will be hit by the tax credit cuts to come forward with their stories to show Downing Street what the reality will be for many if these cuts go ahead.

The touching accounts came as cross-party peers and even Tory backbenchers stood up against Prime Minister David Cameron’s plans to end the tax relief for low-waged families.

And the upper chamber is poised for a crucial debate on tax credit cuts on Monday, which could see peers killing off the hated measures.

Some responding to the People’s Assembly, such as self-employed Eddie Tempest, feared the cuts would lead them into arrears and turn them into “criminals.”

And Claire Schalch, who was left to raise her three children after her husband walked out, said she and her kids owed their survival to tax credits.

She said: “Thanks to tax credits the children were able to still do after school activities and have music lessons.

“We were able to see a play once a year in London and do other educational things that would have been denied us otherwise.”

She said: “I am really concerned about single parents in the future who have to go through bringing up children on their own.”

In Parliament the cut has given rise to a growing dispute between the Lords and Conservative frontbenchers as the policy moves into its final reading in the Lords on Monday.

Mr Cameron was yesterday accused of behaving like a “schoolboy bully” by Lib Dem chief whip Lord Newby after the Prime Minister threatened to suspend the chamber if peers voted down the cuts.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Lord Newby said: “The PM has been challenged in the playground so he is threatening to bring round lots of his mates to duff us up.

“He will be creating a constitutional crisis.

"But that will be a crisis of his creation, not ours."

His opposition to the Bill was echoed by shadow Treasury minister Seema Malhotra who said: "The Tories are conducting a disgraceful campaign of bullying and intimidation against the House of Lords."

She added that Mr Cameron's promise not to put the cut into effect before the general election was "the clearest evidence yet that the Tories misled voters."