Finance (No. 4) Bill

Debate between Alun Cairns and Graeme Morrice

Thursday 19th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Graeme Morrice]

I must confess that I have not shared that article from the Financial Times with my constituents, who, like me, are more avid readers of the West Lothian Courier. As we know, the increase in inflation, high fuel, energy and food prices and the VAT increase up to 20% have eroded any increases given to pensioners by the Government.

I am delighted to be able to tell the constituent whom I have just quoted and all the others who have contacted me about this issue that we on the Labour side of the Committee are trying our best to do exactly that today. In other words, we will do our job and kick this proposal out.

[Alun Cairns]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his generosity in giving way. There is an inconsistency between his actions and his standpoint at the last Budget brought in by the previous Chancellor, who froze the age allowance and the personal allowance. The hon. Gentleman is talking about the effect on pensioners on modest incomes, but at least on this occasion there was a significant increase in the personal allowance. When the previous Chancellor froze the age allowance, he also froze the personal allowance, so that tax affected people on lower incomes. Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that logically that position is inconsistent?

[Graeme Morrice]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his contribution, but I thought we were talking about the proposals in this Bill.

Although we are clear that the granny tax is not right and not fair, the coalition parties have been desperate to try to play down the significant impact of the measure. As we are aware, this is a £3 billion tax raid on our nation’s pensioners. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) actually went as far as to insist that there is no granny tax at all. That will no doubt come as a great surprise to the 4.4 million pensioners who will be worse off as a result of the proposal, but it is typical of the increasingly desperate attempts by Liberal Democrats to distance themselves in the media from unpopular Government policies, before voting with the Tories to get those same measures through Parliament.