Almost 11,000 middle-class families across Bradford are set lose all of their child tax credits worth hundreds of pounds each year.

The benefit is paid on a sliding scale for families with incomes of up to £58,000 – or £66,000 for those with a child under one.

But under coalition plans families earning more than £40,000 will have their payments stopped in April 2011. The following year those earning more than £30,000 will also receive nothing and those earning £25,000 will see the allowance cut to 460 a year. The Government claims people with more than one child will still be given money but no figures have been released.

Currently, couples with a combined income on the higher end of the threshold are paid £545 a year and those on lower incomes are also entitled to £2,300 a year per child. The child element is then gradually tapered dependent on income.

Across the district 10,700 families earn more than £30,000 and claim child tax credits and will lose out.

New figures show 800 families in the parliamentary constituency of Bradford South, 700 families in Bradford East, 600 in Bradford West, 1,200 in Shipley and a further 800 in Keighley earn more than £40,000 and will lose their tax credits from April.

A further 1,200 in Bradford North, 1,800 in Bradford South, 900 in Bradford West, 1,300 in Shipley and 1,400 in Keighley will lose out from April 2012.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Yvette Cooper said: ‘‘Cutting child tax credit for families with a joint income of £30,000 or £40,000 a year will hit a lot of parents who already find themselves overstretched. That help makes a particular difference to working mothers and in many cases is what helps them afford to work part-time.’’ The figures were released as radical plans were unveiled by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith to overhaul the benefits system.

One option includes dismantling the tax credits system altogether, by combining it with other benefits. Another proposal would see a single universal credit replacing benefits.

Mr Duncan Smith said the welfare system was too complex and had helped create ghettos of worklessness, often affecting generations of families.

Changing the system would cost up to £7billion, Labour has claimed, at the time when the Treasury has to make huge cuts.

Mr Duncan Smith insisted his plans would would lead to dramatic savings in the long run – partly by cutting out huge errors in the tax credits system, totalling billions every year – adding: ‘‘We have done the maths. The consultation paper contained few details about the level of any universal benefit and at what point benefit withdrawal would be tapered under a new system.’’