Finance (No. 4) Bill

Debate between Derek Twigg and Owen Smith

Wednesday 18th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

There are a couple of points to make. First, there is no uncertainty that 14,000 millionaires will significantly benefit from the change. Where there is uncertainty, however, is in the Government’s arguments about the overall impact on the Exchequer, in terms of tax gained and tax lost. The Select Committee on the Treasury has said today:

“The cost and benefits of reducing the additional tax rate to 45p are both highly uncertain”.

The Government have tried to make an argument, but they have not even got the facts right in the first place to make their argument stick.

[Owen Smith]

The word “uncertain” is used so many times in the various documents that I have lost count. In fact, I must apologise to the Committee. On Monday evening, I said, perhaps with my dander up, that there were three instances in the HMRC document of the words “uncertain” or “uncertainty”, when there are in fact 32 such references—one for just about every page. I shall read out some excerpts from the document later.