Lord Wood of Anfield
Main Page: Lord Wood of Anfield (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Wood of Anfield's debates with the HM Treasury
(9 years, 9 months ago)
Lords Chamber
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the level of income tax receipts so far this financial year.
My Lords, the Office for National Statistics’ latest estimate for income tax and capital gains tax for the period April to September 2014 is £71.5 billion.
I thank the Minister for that precise answer. As today’s alarming ONS figures confirm, this Government are presiding over a recovery in which wages, far from recovering, have continued to deteriorate. As a result, the public finances are getting worse and social security spending targets are being missed by over £15 billion. The deficit continues to rise. Will the Minister tell us why this is the case, and say whether he agrees that in the light of this, the Prime Minister’s promise in October of further unfunded tax cuts lies somewhere between heroic and reckless?
My Lords, I remind the noble Lord, and the House, that growth in the UK is the highest among the G7 countries; that unemployment has fallen by 324,000 in the past year; and that the other piece of news today, which he omitted to mention, is that the gender pay gap has fallen to an all-time low.