Finance (No. 2) Bill

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee of the Whole House (Day 1)
Monday 19th April 2021 Commons Chamber

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Clauses 2 to 4 stand part.

Amendment 2, in clause 5, page 2, line 16, leave out “2022-23”.

This amendment would mean that the freezing of tax thresholds at 2021-22 levels did not apply until 2023-24.

Amendment 3, page 2, line 18, leave out “2022-23”.

See the explanatory statement for Amendment 2.

Amendment 4, page 2, line 25, leave out “2022-23”.

See the explanatory statement for Amendment 2.

Clause 5 stand part.

Clauses 24 and 25 stand part.

Amendment 93, in clause 26, page 19, line 3, at end insert—

“, or for the presence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2”.

This amendment would extend the income tax exemption for payments to employees in respect of the cost of obtaining antigen coronavirus tests to cover antibody coronavirus tests too.

Clause 26 stand part.

Clause 28 stand part.

Amendment 92, in clause 31, page 20, line 13, at end insert—

“, where the person who received the payment is not a qualifying person by virtue of Paragraph 5 of the direction given by the Treasury under section 76 of the Coronavirus Act 2020”.

This amendment would ensure that the one-off £500 payment to certain working households in receipt of tax credits could only be recovered where it is found that the individual was not entitled to the payment because they were knowingly concerned in underlying fraud either in relation to their tax credit award or the one-off payment.

Amendment 15, page 20, line 13, at end insert—

“(4) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must, no later than 5 April 2022, lay before the House of Commons an equalities impact assessment of the provisions of this section, which must cover the impact of the provisions on—

(a) households at different levels of income,

(b) people with protected characteristics (within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010),

(c) the Treasury’s compliance with the public sector equality duty under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010,

(d) equality in different parts of the United Kingdom and different regions of England, and

(e) child poverty.”

Clauses 31 to 33 stand part.

Clause 40 stand part.

Clause 86 stand part.

New clause 7—Assessment of revenue effects of supplementary income tax rate—

“(none) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must, no later than 31 October 2021, lay before the House of Commons an assessment of the effects on tax revenues of introducing a supplementary rate of income tax, charged at a rate of 55%, above a threshold of £200,000.”

This new clause would require the Government to publish an assessment of the effect on tax revenues of introducing a 55% income tax rate on income over £200,000.

New clause 8—Equalities impact assessment and distributional analysis of tax thresholds—

“The Chancellor of the Exchequer must, no later than 5 April 2022, lay before the House of Commons an equalities impact assessment of existing income tax thresholds and a distributional analysis of—

(a) the effect of reducing the income tax threshold for the additional rate to £80,000, and

(b) the effect of introducing a supplementary rate of income tax, charged at a rate of 50%, above a threshold of £125,000.”

New clause 10—Review of changes to coronavirus support payments etc—

“(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must review the impact on investment in parts of the United Kingdom and regions of England of the changes made to coronavirus support payments etc by sections 31, 32 and 33 of this Act and lay a report of that review before the House of Commons within six months of the passing of this Act.

(2) A review under this section must consider the effects of the provisions on—

(a) business investment,

(b) employment,

(c) productivity,

(d) GDP growth, and

(e) poverty.

(3) A review under this section must consider the following scenarios—

(a) the coronavirus job retention scheme and the self-employment income support scheme are continued until 30th September 2021, and

(b) the coronavirus job retention scheme and self- employment income support scheme are continued until 31st December 2021.

(4) In this section—

“parts of the United Kingdom” means—

(a) England,

(b) Scotland,

(c) Wales, and

(d) Northern Ireland;

and “regions of England” has the same meaning as that used by the Office for National Statistics.”

This new clause would require a report comparing the effect of (a) the coronavirus job retention scheme and the self-employment income support scheme being continued until 30 September 2021, and (b) the coronavirus job retention scheme and self-employment income support scheme being continued until 31 December 2021 on various economic indicators

New clause 11—Review of changes relating to cycles and cyclist’s safety equipment—

“(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must review the impact on investment in parts of the United Kingdom and regions of England of the changes made by section 25 and lay a report of that review before the House of Commons within six months of the passing of this Act.

(2) A review under this section must consider the effects of the provisions on—

(a) business investment,

(b) employment,

(c) productivity,

(d) GDP growth,

(e) poverty, and

(f) carbon emissions.

(3) A review under this section must consider the following scenarios—

(a) the cost of a cycle is made an allowable expense on self-assessment tax return forms, and

(b) the cost of a cycle is not an allowable expense on self-assessment tax return forms.

(4) In this section—

“parts of the United Kingdom” means—

(a) England,

(b) Scotland,

(c) Wales, and

(d) Northern Ireland;

and “regions of England” has the same meaning as that used by the Office for National Statistics.”

This new clause would require a report comparing the impact of the impact of (a) making the cost of a cycle an allowable expense on self-assessment tax return forms and (b) not doing so on various economic indicators.

New clause 12—Review of impact of section 40 on equalities—

“(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must conduct an equality impact assessment of section 40 and lay this before the House of Commons within six months of Royal Assent.

(2) This assessment must consider the expected impact of section 40 on individuals and groups with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010.”

This new clause would require the Chancellor of the Exchequer to review the impact of Clause 40 on equalities.

New clause 22—Review of impact of section 40—

“(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must review the impact of section 40 and lay a report of that review before the House of Commons within six months of the passing of this Act.

(2) A review under this section must consider the effects of the provisions on—

(a) the regional distribution of capital gains in the UK, and

(b) projected receipts.

(3) A review under this section must consider the following scenarios—

(a) capital gains tax rates are changed so as to be equal to those of income tax, and

(b) capital gains tax rates remain at the level in this Act.”

This new clause seeks a report on the impact of equalising capital gains tax and income tax on (a)the regional distribution of capital gains in the UK, and (b) projected receipts.

New clause 23—Equality impact analysis—

“(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must review the equality impact of sections 1 to 5, 24 to 26, 28, 31 to 33, 40 and 86 of this Act and lay a report of that review before the House of Commons within six months of the passing of this Act.

(2) A review under this section must consider—

(a) the impact of those sections on households at different levels of income,

(b) the impact of those sections on people with protected characteristics (within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010),

(c) the impact of those sections on the Treasury’s compliance with the public sector equality duty under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, and

(d) the impact of those sections on equality in different parts of the United Kingdom and different regions of England.

(3) A review under this section must give a separate analysis in relation to the following matters—

(a) income tax,

(b) employment income,

(c) coronavirus support payments,

(d) pension schemes,

(e) investments, and

(f) inheritance tax.

(4) In this section—

“parts of the United Kingdom” means—

(a) England,

(b) Scotland,

(c) Wales, and

(d) Northern Ireland;

and “regions of England” has the same meaning as that used by the Office for National Statistics.”

This new clause requires the Chancellor of the Exchequer to carry out and publish a review of the effects of clauses 1 to 5, 24 to 26, 28, 31 to 33, 40 and 86 of the Bill on equality in relation to households with different levels of income, people with protected characteristics, the Treasury’s public sector equality duty and on a regional basis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

[Inaudible.]

[The First Deputy Chairman]

We are having some difficulty hearing Seema Malhotra, I am afraid. Do you want to try again, Seema?

[Seema Malhotra]

[Inaudible.]

[The First Deputy Chairman]

I think what we should probably do is go to our next speaker and come back to Seema. We will go now to Sir John Redwood.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con) [V]]

Dame Rosie, I have declared my business interests in the register.

Of course, I am not going to vote against this Budget and I wish the Government well with it, but I would like them to pause a little, think through where we are and recognise that they may need to revisit some of these decisions in the months ahead. My worry is that they are being too tough in their tax measures and too tough on people’s incomes at a time when we need to build confidence and recovery, and they are doing so at a time when it is really impossible for their expert advisers and other economic forecasters to give them a clear steer of what the public finances will look like in two years’ time, let alone in three or four years’ time.

The Government seem to think that their experts can define a given amount of money that will be a shortfall in order to hit their longer-term Government targets, and therefore say that we need to make these tax changes for the next few years in order to fill the alleged black hole. It may be that they are trying to fill a hole that does not exist. It may be that we will have a much better recovery than the forecasters are thinking. It may be that the economy responds much better over the next two or three years or, indeed, over the next two or three months, as the relaxations kick in.

We can see the difficulty that the official forecasters have if we look at the numbers they gave us as recently as November 2020. Then, the OBR, forecasting the budget deficit—the amount of extra borrowing—for the year 2020-21, said that it would be £394 billion, an enormous amount. Bear in mind that it was having to forecast for only four months, as two thirds of the year had already gone. When we got the 11-month figures, up to February, recently, we discovered that they had come in at just £278 billion and so, subject to what happened in March, it may be that the OBR was the best part of £100 billion out on the deficit for the year in question when it tried to forecast, already knowing quite a lot of what had happened. It was, of course, massively too pessimistic. It is great news that we will have borrowed so much less than we feared, although clearly we are still borrowing far too much on an unsustainable basis, which is why we need to promote a strong recovery to get the deficit down.

I therefore say to the Government: let us show a little humility. The experts and advisers are not able to give us anything like accurate figures—I can sympathise with them, because extreme things have happened in response to the pandemic—so are we sure that we need to make these moves over the next three or four years?

There is also a case for showing a bit of humility and thinking ahead about whether we might need to show a bit more flexibility because the Government themselves have rightly said, now that we are out of the European Union and the economic world has been stood on its head, that they want to set out a new framework for guiding the economy. I encourage them to do that, and I hope it is a framework that promotes growth and considers real issues such as the increase in the number of jobs, the rise in real incomes and the productivity growth that can be achieved.

We need to get away from the Maastricht criteria, which have governed our policy for many years and still seem to be behind the architecture of this Bill. We seem to be driven by the need to get state debt falling as a percentage of our national output by the end of the period that we are talking about today for the tax changes. State debt is now a pretty useless figure to try to target in the way that the Maastricht criteria did. We now live in this age of monetary experimentation, where great banks such as the Bank of England, as well as the European Central Bank, have bought in very large quantities of state debt—indeed, they still are doing so. Surely, where that happens in a single sovereign country with its own central bank, owned on behalf of the taxpayers by the state, we should treat the debt that we have bought back in rather differently from the debt on which we owe money by way of interest to people outside—some our own citizens, some foreigners—who have been financing the Government. That makes state debt a very difficult number to use to guide the economy. Of course, the future system must have some control over the build-up of actual interest charges that we have to pay to third parties, but it should concentrate much more on promoting growth.

May we therefore have just a few words from the Government, accepting that these numbers are very difficult and that the current forecasts are likely to be very wrong? No one can say exactly how wrong they are going to be, because so many things will happen over the next two or three years and nobody has been through a bounce back of the kind of pace that is possible from such a big hole in our economy, created by necessary health measures to cure the pandemic.

We need a policy that is very supportive of more jobs, of higher incomes and of encouraging investment, enterprise, saving and, above all, self-employment and more small business activity. My worry is that the Government are being a bit mean with people and with small businesses in the name of controlling state debt at a time when we have no idea what the state debt will be in two or three years’ time, and when the state debt number is now very different because of the purchase of state debt by the state itself.

I would hope that the Government recognise that we may need to revisit all this, and I would want them to be on the side of people keeping more of the money they earn and, above all, of a much better deal for small business and the self-employed, where I think they are too tough.

[The First Deputy Chairman]

We are having one or two technical issues, so we will go straight to Richard Burgon.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab) [V]]

I wish to speak to my new clause 7, which would require the Government to publish an assessment of the effect on tax revenues of introducing a 55% income tax rate on income over £200,000.

The coronavirus crisis has not only shone a spotlight on the deep inequalities in our society and their deadly consequences, but deepened them. Deep inequalities scar our nation. As we come out of this pandemic, if we are to learn the lessons and build a more equal, less divided and more inclusive society, then we need to address decades of failing tax policy. Ensuring higher taxes on those on the very highest incomes has an important role to play in building that fairer society. Since Thatcher, the Tory mantra has been that low taxes on the rich benefit everyone, but years of keeping taxes low for the very rich did not in fact boost economic growth; instead, it allowed inequality to run completely out of control. That has been proven by new research by the London School of Economics and King’s College London showing that reducing taxes on the rich leads to higher income inequality that has an insignificant effect, in any positive fashion, on economic growth or unemployment.

In short, trickle-down economics has been a lie. Now is the time to acknowledge that and address it by creating a fairer tax system. My amendment calling for a new 55% income tax rate would target those on very high incomes of over £200,000 per year—the richest part of the top 1%, or about 300,000 people. The current highest income tax rate is just 45% for those earning above £150,000—not much more than for those earning £50,000. Yet 40 years ago the average top income tax rate for the wealthy OECD member countries was 62%. The top income tax was 60% even under Margaret Thatcher, so perhaps even the Thatcherites on the Government Benches will consider offering their support for the amendment. This increase would affect less than 1% of the population—about 200,000 people, according to HMRC.

There has been huge suffering in our society over the past year, yet the very wealthiest in our society—the billionaires and the super-rich—have exploited this crisis to further line their pockets. We cannot go on layering inequality on top of inequality. Now is the time to act. Publishing an assessment of the effect on tax revenues of introducing a 55% income tax rate on income over £200,000 would be an important stepping-stone towards building a fairer and better society. That is why I would like to press my new clause 7 to a vote.