Lord Watts
Main Page: Lord Watts (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Watts's debates with the HM Treasury
(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Danny Alexander
Of course, the burden of the deficit reduction is fair overall, and we know that the burden falls most highly on the richest 20% of the population. However, with spending cuts needing to continue for longer—another two years—we need to redouble our efforts, both to tackle tax avoidance and to deliver the income tax cuts that we have promised, by lifting the personal allowance as rapidly as the nation can afford. Those are, of course, issues that we shall be considering in the run-up to the Budget.
Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)
Why does the Minister not look at employing more tax inspectors, given that billions of pounds are going unpaid because there are not enough tax inspectors to do the job?
Danny Alexander
Not only have we looked at that; we are doing it. In the spending review, we announced an extra £900 million for HMRC, which is creating an extra 2,000 specialist posts to tackle tax avoidance and tax evasion. It took the hon. Gentleman’s party 12 years just to set up a specialist unit at HMRC to deal with high net worth individuals. We have extended that to ensure that there is a specialist unit to deal with the tax affairs of all those who pay, or should pay, the 50p rate.