Finance Bill
Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Fiona O'Donnell(13 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Stewart Jackson
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Lady, who always makes an intelligent, cogent and reasonable case, but she is completely wrong. I had not intended to trouble the scorers this evening, but it is important that we have a proper debate on new clause 5, that it is not rushed through, and that this is not treated as a procedural issue that the House can dismiss lightly. It goes to the kernel of what my hon. Friends and I believe in. We did not come into politics at any level—in my case, more than 20 years ago—to make people poorer, to embed disadvantage, or to have a tax system that favours some over others.
My party has a strong tradition of small “l” liberal and progressive social reform, from Disraeli onwards. One of the more depressing aspects of the debate is the straw men—or straw people, I should say—who have been set up, and the caricatures of the Conservative party that have been paraded before us.
Mr Jackson
Not at the moment; I may do so later. If a reasonable person from any other European country stumbled into the Chamber tonight, they would wonder why we were debating the issue. It is an existential issue of what we believe as public servants—as politicians—about the institution of marriage. That is not to traduce or do down the massive contribution that those who are, for a variety of reasons, single parents make to their family. They love their children and care about their family, and they are a part of the community. However, it is incumbent on us to say what we think is right. I commend the courage and dedication of my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), who is willing to be unfashionable sometimes and speak out on what he believes is right.
This is a totemic issue, because my party put it in its election manifesto. It recapitulated that point in the coalition agreement and has argued for this specific policy, so it is not one that we can lightly cast aside as irrelevant now that we are in a coalition in which there must be give and take. Many of us have always believed that it is vital to take poorer working people out of tax. We heard about a cornucopia of so-called Tory errors, going back to the minimum wage. Let me remind Opposition Members that the gap between the richest and poorest 10% widened under the Labour Government. A former very senior Government member professed that he was
“intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”;
that is a fact. No one has a monopoly on care and compassion for people.
It cannot be wrong to look at examples in other European countries, see that their fiscal policy decisions work, and decide to look at a similar policy. I like, respect and trust the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury; he is a decent man of his word. He will have heard the strength of views and the passion on the Conservative Benches. He will also have heard the filibustering by the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), which reached a nadir when he effectively said in his final remarks that people were essentially too thick to fill in their tax forms. I know that filibustering is an art form, and he has perfected it, but that is gilding the lily and taking things to a ludicrous length. This is not a subject for knockabout politics; it is about real changes to support people.