Income Tax

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

We have consistently opposed this outrageous change to dish out a tax cut for the very privileged 1% in society. The hon. Gentleman should join us, and I hope he will, in voting for today’s motion, as it is about a key divide in British politics and in Scottish politics. It is very important that we expose the fact that by cutting the top rate of tax on earnings above £150,000 from 50p to 45p Ministers have wilfully accelerated the divide between the majority and the richest 1%.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Will the shadow Minister concede that the considerable increase in personal allowances under this Government has been of no benefit to those earning more than £150,000 because between £100,000-worth and £110,000-worth of earnings all the personal allowances are removed?

[Chris Leslie]

The hon. Gentleman has done more for the very wealthy earning over £150,000. At this time of pressure on our public spending and on his constituents and mine, what did he decide to do? A typical millionaire, he gave away a benefit worth £100,000. He voted for that cut in the 50p rate of tax, which the vast majority of people feel is an obscene example of the unfairness of this Government. It is particularly a stain on the reputation of the Conservatives, but I want to hear how the Liberal Democrats justify their votes for the cut in that 50p rate.

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[Kate Green]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Mine is not by any means one of the poorest constituencies in the country, yet we stand to benefit relatively little. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister said something about the geographical context.

[Andrew Bridgen]

The hon. Lady claims that her constituents are not benefiting from the cut in the top rate of tax from 50p to 45p. However, they are benefiting from the highest economic growth of any country in the G7 and from the 1.8 million new jobs created in this country—more than in the whole of the rest of Europe added together.

[Kate Green]

That brings me to my second point, which is about how this growth, and jobs growth, is affecting—allegedly benefiting—my constituents.

Ministers are very fond of asserting that work is the best route out of poverty and that the increase in jobs is therefore of benefit to working families. Of course, work ought to be the best route out of poverty, but the wage squeeze that we have seen in recent years means that that is simply not proving to be the case. When two thirds of children in poverty are living in households where someone is in paid employment, Ministers cannot be satisfied with a growth strategy that so misses the point in terms of rewarding those who aim to work and do the right thing. One of the reasons why those families are not benefiting from this jobs growth, apart from wage restraint, is that many of the in-work financial support measures that we put in place to support low wages—as indeed did earlier Conservative Governments, through family credit—have been eroded, frozen or cut under this Government. My second request to the Minister is for a more comprehensive answer than the one he gave a few moments ago to my question about what exactly is Ministers’ strategy for addressing in-work poverty, which is felt very acutely by many families in my constituency.

My third question for the Minister is one that I asked of Ministers at Treasury questions yesterday about the gender impact of a cut in the top rate of tax. As we know, men are disproportionately likely to benefit from cuts to income tax, particularly cuts to higher-rate taxes, and women are disproportionately affected by rises in consumption taxes because of their responsibility for managing the household budget. This has a direct feed-through to levels of child poverty. If women—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne) has clearly not looked at the many decades of social policy analysis in relation to this. If he has time later, I will take him through it. There is plenty of evidence that poor children have poor mothers. [Interruption.] If he thinks that this is sex discrimination, I am afraid that his analysis of the gender dimension of fiscal policy is even slighter than I understood it to be.

Yesterday I asked Ministers whether they could explain the gender analysis of their fiscal policy, which is exacerbated by things like their marriage tax breaks, the vast majority of which will benefit men, putting money in wallets, not purses. That will mean, again, that children lose out and child poverty is impacted.

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[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

I welcome today’s Opposition motion, which is an opportunity to show the clear ideological divide between Opposition and Government Members. The Opposition’s motion reiterates their intent to reintroduce the discredited 50p tax rate, which, taken with other policy announcements, such as the so-called mansion tax, clearly demonstrates their willingness to sacrifice the current economic growth and prosperity and, indeed, our nation’s economic future, on the altar of their socialist beliefs. It is probably an attempt to shore up a sort of core-vote strategy—a failing strategy—that will do nothing to increase the nation’s belief in the credibility of either the Leader of the Opposition or the shadow Chancellor.

If we go back to the politics of the 1970s, as the Labour party is proposing, we might want to remember the words attributed to the then Labour Chancellor, Denis Healey who, talking of tax, said that he would squeeze the rich “until the pips squeak”. Social mobility and the ability to move between countries was not as high in the 1970s, but that policy led to what was called the brain drain. I seem to remember from my childhood that, given our economy then, we were regarded as the sick man of Europe, which we are far away from being under this Government’s long-term economic plan.

[Frank Dobson]

Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that average annual economic growth during the Callaghan and Wilson Governments was almost exactly equal to the miraculous levels achieved during Mrs Thatcher’s prime ministership?

[Andrew Bridgen]

The right hon. Gentleman, whom I much respect, has the advantage of me in years and service in this House. His figures may well be correct—I cannot challenge them with the information I have—but he must look at the economic backdrop of the relative growth of other economies in the world at the moment, and at the challenges that we face, such as the drag of the eurozone. There is no doubt that this Government are set to deliver the highest economic growth of any developed economy in the world this year.

[Mr Jeremy Browne]

I hope that my hon. Friend can shed light on an aspect of the Opposition’s outlook. Given that the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury thinks that the introduction of a 50p rate would have no behavioural impact, and that it is inherently virtuous to have higher taxes on people who create businesses and wealth and who employ people, why would he be willing to stop at 50p when he could go up to the levels of personal taxation that Labour presided over last time they were elected without Tony Blair as their leader?

[Andrew Bridgen]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. [Interruption.] It is in the nature of the Labour party that there is always another tax. Labour Members say, “One more tax will do it”, but it never ends, does it? He is quite right that the ability to earn—I stress that the word is “earn”, not “be given” or “inherit”—£150,000 a year or more does not—[Interruption.] Madam Deputy Speaker, this is ridiculous.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. This is getting absolutely ridiculous. The hon. Gentleman has the Floor. We do not need the rest of the Members in the Chamber to engage in separate conversations. If they wish to do so, they can go outside and have a conversation. Otherwise, they should listen respectfully to the hon. Gentleman who has the Floor.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. If the shadow Minister wishes to intervene, I am more than happy to give way.

[Chris Leslie]

The hon. Gentleman said that the 50p rate was clearly ridiculous, but my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) quoted the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer, my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), who said before the last election that he could not countenance reducing the 50p rate while so many people were bearing such a burden in our society. Does the hon. Gentleman really think that that burden has lifted?

[Andrew Bridgen]

The deficit of £150 billion that we inherited from the previous Labour Government has been reduced by a third, but there is much more work to be done. If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me and listen to my speech, during which he will have the chance to intervene, I think that I will answer many of his questions.

The ability to earn more than £150,000 does not give or guarantee happiness, health or friends, but it does give choices. People who earn more money have more choices. My definition of poverty is having no choices: people with no choices are in poverty. One of the choices people have is about where they are domiciled for tax. With taxes rising in France, there has been a flight of people to the UK, to such an extent that, as was pointed out at a meeting with the Mayor of London a few months ago, so many French people live in London that it is the fourth largest French city.

I have always been a great believer in this quote:

“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

When the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) brought in the 50p tax rate before the last election, I naturally assumed that he did not take on board George Santayana’s sentiments, as history has told us time and again that

“for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity, is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”

Yet the Labour party persist in this notion that having one of the highest top rates of tax in the world will increase revenues and make the country more competitive. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal) was quite right to quote Abraham Lincoln, who said:

“You can’t make the poor richer by making the rich poorer.”

He described economic inequality as benign, rather than malevolent. Understanding the difference leads to understanding why allowing the greatest number of opportunities works better for increasing everyone’s wealth than trying to equalise outcomes. That was true then, and it remains true now.

The Labour party’s economic blindness seems to extend to failing to take note of what is happening over the channel in France. It is in its third year of being led by the Leader of the Opposition’s comrade Francois Hollande. After the Socialist Government increased a range of taxes, including the top rate of tax, revenues have proven to be half of what was expected. France has virtually no economic growth, and it has a black hole of billions of euros in its public accounts, to the point that it now wants the UK to pay €2 billion to help to bail it out. An uncompetitive top rate of tax decreases the incentive to work, reduces the amount of money for investment and, as has been seen in France, ultimately reduces the size of the economy.

What the Opposition do not seem to grasp as they play 1970s politics is that we live in a different world from that of the 1970s, when the UK had draconian top rates of tax. The principal difference is that high earners now have the option to live elsewhere, without any inconvenience, because of the internet and much improved air travel. We do not want to go back to the brain drain, and to being the sick man of Europe.

Plenty of people have offered advice on this issue to the Labour party. Let us take the comments of Mark Giddens, a partner at UHY Hacker Young, who stated:

“We would lose some of the edge that we currently have over other Western European countries in attracting successful entrepreneurs and investors. We will also find it harder to compete against other major English speaking economies such as the USA”.

The evidence seems clear. Under the French model we see high tax rates, anaemic growth, high unemployment and lower Government revenues; under our current model the long-term economic plan is working, we have the fastest economic growth in the developed world, and an economy that has created more jobs than the rest of the EU combined, leading to more tax revenue.

We can see in the HMRC analysis that was mentioned by the Minister and published in 2012, that the 50p rate was raising nothing like the £3 billion that Labour estimated at the time and continues to hold dear. Indeed, the direct cost of the reduction in the rate of income tax at that time was estimated at only £100 million. When other lost tax revenues are taken into account, it is evident that there was no direct cost to the Treasury in cutting the top rate of tax from 50p to 45p, not to mention the wider economic impact of that higher rate of tax, as we have seen in the French economy.

When Nigel Lawson cut the top rate of tax from 60p to 40p in 1988, the tax take rose and top earners paid a larger share of it. When the Treasury decided to set the rate of capital gains tax at 28%—up from 18% under the previous Labour Government—it stated that its studies had concluded that that rate maximised the tax take. If the optimum rate of unearned income is 28%, I suggest it is unlikely that the optimum rate of income tax should be nearly double that level. Figures show that less than 1% of the population earn more than £150,000 a year, yet those people contribute approximately 30% of the total income tax take. That is a total of £49 billion from the 45p rate, compared with only £40 billion raised the year before when the rate was 50p— evidence that when we cut the rate of tax, revenues rise.

What is Labour’s case for tax rates that will lead to decreased revenues? When the measure was first suggested it was nothing more than a pre-election attempt to convince its core vote that it was still the party of squeezing the rich, and remains so today. At the same time, Labour was obviously laying a bear trap for the incoming coalition Government. It was a Trojan horse of a policy; a Trojan horse of a tax. Members will have noticed that I have referred to France rather a lot in my speech. That is because for the future of the UK should Labour win the next election, we have only to look across the channel and see what has happened. As the Leader of the Opposition said previously, “What Hollande is doing in France I want to do in Britain.”

[Mr McKenzie]

How does the hon. Gentleman feel about comments from the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) who said that cutting the rate of tax to 45p would emphasise to the public that again, the Conservative party is indeed the party of the rich?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I said at the beginning of the debate that if we co-operated with each other and each speaker spoke for no more than nine or a maximum of 10 minutes, everybody would be able to speak without a time limit. The hon. Gentleman has now spoken for 13 minutes, so I would be grateful if he would think about drawing his remarks to a conclusion.

[Andrew Bridgen]

I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I was enjoying myself. In conclusion, by continuing to advocate a return to the 50p rate of tax, the Labour party is demonstrating that it is not a credible party of opposition, and certainly not of government. It is in fact a left-wing pressure group, ignoring economic evidence from around the world and determined to represent the interests of its union bosses.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a great joy to follow the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen). He told me that he is capable of generating energy out of potato peelings, and he certainly illustrated that today. I am also pleased to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who made a point about the inequality imposed by the Government’s economic policies. Given the inequality between men and women’s earnings, if women earned the same as men—they do not—I understand that they would basically be working for free from today onwards. That is the level of inequality we face.

It is all very well talking about raising tax thresholds. Everybody likes that, I guess, but as has been pointed out, it is not a panacea, certainly not for people who are moving in and out of work on zero-hours contracts—the 1.1 million people moving in and out of benefits—and having to go to food banks and so on, or those who cannot get jobs regularly. While many people welcome raising tax thresholds, it is costing us £11 billion a year. I mention that because it has been suggested that the measure under discussion today, the 50p tax rate—the static value of which is supposed to be £3 billion—is somehow insignificant and incidental, but it is still a significant figure, given the money the Government are giving away in raising tax thresholds.

Today the Prime Minister said again that he will be giving away £7 billion—there will basically be cuts in public services to pay for more tax giveaways. We are moving now to a situation where the Tories are saying, “Public services bad; tax cutting good” and many communities are feeling the pinch as a result, which is unfortunate.

During Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister said that it would be “immoral” to rack up debt and leave it to our children as an inheritance, yet I put it to the Minister that the Government are doing precisely that. Their economic strategy is generating a low-income, low-wage economy, at the same time as pushing up the tax thresholds, which people have welcomed. The net outcome is that income tax receipts are going down. Instead of going up by 7%, they have risen by 0.1%, and the tax and national insurance increase that was supposed to continue to rise is £13 billion short this year.

The deficit reduction that the Chancellor planned for the autumn statement will be £11 billion down. Why? Because he predicted that wages would rise by 2.5% and they have risen by 0.5%. And why is that? As I mentioned, it is about insufficient investment from banks in productivity, and cuts to benefits for students or fees for sixth formers. In addition, the infrastructure that generates productivity and higher wages is being undermined, so the tax take is getting worse. Under Labour, 55% of the economy was debt; it is now about 75%. Borrowing under this Government over the past four years has been more than in 13 years of a Labour Government. It is a complete catastrophe.

[Andrew Bridgen]

rose—

[Geraint Davies]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment. He was banging on about the 1970s, but let us remember more recent history and the fact that in the 10 years to 2008, the economy grew under Labour by 40% before we met the banking disaster. Two years on, thanks to the fiscal intervention of Brown and Obama, it was growing again by 2010. We have been flatlining since then because of the economic incompetence of the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Perhaps I can drag the hon. Gentleman back to today’s motion and Labour’s wish to bring back the 50p tax rate. What does he say about the comments of Lord Myners, a Labour peer, who said of the shadow Chancellor:

“The economic logic behind his thinking would not get him a pass at GCSE economics…he takes us back to old Labour and the politics of envy”?

That was in The Daily Telegraph on 25 January 2014.

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[Mark Garnier]

The hon. Lady will have to ask my hon. Friend about that. I was referring to the shadow Chancellor and saying that if my hon. Friend was at the conversation he would know what was said. In any case, my hon. Friend has a career in front of him.

We need inward investment. We have talked about the 1970s when we had exchange controls in a very different type of economy. Now we need to set a direction of travel to provide absolute certainty to any company looking to invest in this country. It can never, ever be the case that the message coming out from this place is one where politics overrides the interest of investors coming into the country. The hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow talks about vested interests, but if we are referring to the vested interests of someone who is going to invest in this country, I would do everything I could to support those vested interests, because it means bringing jobs for my constituents. The more jobs they bring, the higher the salaries, the better the standard of living. It will work.

[Andrew Bridgen]

My hon. Friend is bringing his knowledge of taxation to the Chamber. Does he agree with me and with Lord Digby Jones, who was the Trade and Industry Minister under the last Labour Government, when he said recently on the BBC of the 50p tax rate:

“It’s great politics but it’s lousy economics…Are we talking politics or are we talking what’s right to create wealth and jobs in the nation?”?

[Mark Garnier]

My hon. Friend makes a fine point. Digby Jones is a wise and sensible—[Interruption.] He was a Minister in the former Labour Government, although he was the only Minister ever not to be aligned with a political party—I concede that point.

The key point about the direction of travel is that we must make every effort to give certainty to those investors coming into the country. Mucking around with the tax rates and providing a confused message about the top level of tax is bad economics. I hope that the Minister—although now may not be the right time—will give us some indication that, should the economic recovery and the recovery of the public finances continue, there will ultimately be a 40p tax rate as a target. I suspect she may not want to commit herself at this point. As I say, mucking around with tax rates is detrimental to our economic recovery.

[Mr Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde) (Lab)]

I will follow your direction, Madam Deputy Speaker, on the length of Members’ contributions because I know that some Members still wish to speak in the debate.

I think that we will have no argument about the fact that austerity has been painful. What divides us in the Chamber is where we see that pain being inflicted most. Labour Members believe that it is targeted on the whole at people at the lower end of the income scale—they have been feeling most of the pain in these difficult economic times. Incredibly, billions in tax cuts have been given to people at the upper end of the income scale. The top 1% of earners have been given a tax cut worth £3 billion, in stark contrast to those at the other end of the income scale, who have been struggling in these difficult times.

Let us look at what little has been given to lower earners and how that was paid for. It did not come from the top earners; it came from the Government dragging down the tax bracket to take in middle-income families, who have paid through going into the higher tax bracket for anything that has been conceded to people at the lower end by moving the threshold up. I suspect that the Government wished that to go unnoticed but we have well and truly figured that one out and the public have noticed it, too.

On top of that, households will on average be nearly £1,000 a year worse off by 2015 as a result of Government tax cuts and benefit changes. That means that hard-working, middle-income families are being squeezed into a cost of living crisis. We see that day in, day out. I certainly do in Inverclyde. I see that in everyday events. More and more families are having to shop around during their weekly shop, looking for bargains. Those families are in work, yet they are finding it difficult.

As has been highlighted, whatever happened to putting into practice the Government’s well-used phrase, “Those with the broadest shoulders should bear more of the burden”? That was pushed to one side when those people were relieved of that burden through tax cuts.

If people can pay more, they should pay more in these difficult times. That is only fair. That is what this debate is about—fairness in these times of tax pain. It is not only me saying that. Some members on the Government Benches have been saying it, too. The coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, have been saying it. Most notably, the Deputy Prime Minister said that this was the wrong time to send the wrong message by cutting the higher-tax level. Even Lord Heseltine, who once looked as if he would lead the Conservative party and become the next Prime Minister, has said that it is the wrong message to send out.

Tax avoidance is increasing under this Government. As we heard only the other day, £35 billion of tax has been avoided, yet the Government are reluctant to go after the tax-avoidance loopholes and to take the burden off lower-income earners. In addition, the Government have again cut staff levels at HMRC.

Austerity is being applied at the wrong end of the social spectrum by this Government. That is as clear as day. By their actions, those who can least afford it will be asked time and again to step up and make that contribution. It is not just the lowest paid—middle to low-income earners are also taking the brunt of the austerity.

Let me talk a little about hard-working families in Inverclyde. Government Members claim that they are producing more employment—that more people are in jobs. In Inverclyde, 26% of children live in poverty. Three quarters of them come from working homes. It is an absolute disgrace that, in this day and age, that level of child poverty is allowed to exist.

People say that good things come to those who wait and they talk about the Government’s long-term economic strategy. I will tell Members what good things came to those who waited: it came to those bankers who paid themselves a bonus after waiting to cash in on the lower tax rate. However, it did not come for one of my constituents, who waited almost a year to be assessed for her disability benefit and had to rely on the good will of others.

We support lifting many of the low paid out of tax altogether. They are not being lifted out of poverty. They are still captured in the circle of poverty. Their outlay does not match their income and that is evident when we look at where they are buying the basics of life: they have to look for bargains time and again.

[Andrew Bridgen]

The hon. Gentleman is talking with great passion and emotion about the hard-pressed people in his constituency. I am completely with him on that, but can he explain how deterring the top 1% of earners, who are already paying 30% of all income tax, from economic activity, or even driving them out of the country, will help his hard-pressed, hard-working constituents, or mine?

[Mr McKenzie]

The hon. Gentleman argues that, if we put the 50p rate back in place, we would see a mass exodus of billionaires. It is not me who is saying that that would not happen; it is his coalition partners. The Lib Dems say that that would not happen; they do not see it transpiring. If he is talking about the employment that has been created, he will see that in my area of the country, part-time work and temporary work, especially at this time of year, are on the increase. Labour Front Benchers have talked about helping those on lower pay and lowering the starting rate of tax to 10p. The public were hit by one of the first increases in tax that the Government put in place: the VAT rise, which has hit them hard, too.

Remember that this Government promised to balance the books in this Parliament. They have reneged on that promise and are actually borrowing more. Therefore, the time scale to balance the books under this Government has been pushed out even further. That can mean only one thing for those already feeling the pinch of austerity: they are going to feel the punch of austerity if this Government get back into power. It is about balancing the books in a fairer way.

We say that a 50p higher rate would help to do that. It is time for the economic circumstances to require those who can pay more to pay more. A 5p increase will not chase them out of the country, despite what the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) thinks. Labour will reverse the £3 billion tax cut for the top 1% of earners as part of our plan to balance the books in a fairer way. In contrast this Government have increased tax for millions while millionaires are given huge tax cuts. It is time for top earners to pay the 50p rate. If this Government will not put that in place, the next Labour Government will.

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[Mr Browne]

I have not the faintest idea what the hon. Gentleman is talking about. It seems like complete nonsense. I am not in favour of punishing anybody. If people can keep a higher proportion of the product of their labour, they will be incentivised to keep working and be productive. That applies to people who are earning £20,000, and who have seen a big cut in their income tax under this Government, but it also applies to people who are earning £220,000 and who might have set up successful companies employing 150 people in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency or in mine. I am not seeking to punish people. I am not one of those politicians who believes that we can make some people happy only by making others unhappy. I want us to be a harmonious country in which everyone is incentivised to work and can see the product of their labour.

[Andrew Bridgen]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. Does he agree that Opposition Members are still failing to appreciate that we need a strong economy, driven by entrepreneurial people, in order to have the strong public services that we need? That is where all the money comes from.

[Mr Browne]

I do agree with that, although I do not always agree with everything put forward by those on the Government Front Bench. For example, it is important—as the hon. Member for Wyre Forest said—that we should remain a member of the European Union. I know that some Conservative Members are uncomfortable with that, but we are part of the world’s biggest single market. It is an attraction to investors from outside the EU that they can invest in the United Kingdom not only because it is the sixth biggest economy in the world but because we can act as a stepping stone into the largest single market.

We also need to adopt a broadly liberal approach to migration. It is extremely important for our country that we can attract high-talent people from outside the European Union. We see quite a lot of that in London, with people coming to our capital city as well as to the other parts of the United Kingdom to invest and to grow businesses. That is important for our national prosperity.

I take an economically liberal approach across the board, but it is important that we have an enterprise economy for all the reasons that I have stated. An enterprise economy is important if we are to fund public services, for example. Many Members will have travelled widely. I would simply recommend that they try out the public services in countries that have had a heavy dose of socialism. After all, people were only escaping over the Berlin wall in one direction. They were not trying to escape from the west to the east in search of a better quality of life or better public services. A lot of the dysfunctional countries with real social problems are those that do not raise enough money to be able to fund decent public services. In no country in the world do politicians want to have bad hospitals and bad schools. Some countries do not have good hospitals and good schools because they cannot afford to fund them, and that is because they do not have an economy that raises enough revenue to do that. That is because they keep deterring wealth-creating entrepreneurial behaviour. It is all so straightforward that it feels frustrating having to explain it to people.

My philosophical and concluding point is this: all the money we are talking about is being earned by individuals working; it is not our money, the Government’s money or the Leader of the Opposition’s money. When he talks about giving money back, as if he were some sort of Santa Claus figure who is there to decide how much of your own money you are allowed to have and we should be extremely grateful to him, or to the shadow Chief Secretary, for benevolently allowing us to keep a bit of it—