DRAFT DEVOLVED INCOME TAX RATES (CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS) ORDER 2018

Anneliese Dodds Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 General Committees

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve on this Committee with you in the Chair, Mr Gapes. I am grateful to the Minister for his helpful explanation. As he set out, this is a relatively straightforward set of measures that are consequential on the 2014 Act and the current situation with Scottish income tax. We obviously needed to have some of this secondary legislation laid before the House, to ensure that income tax reliefs, deductions and PAYE continue to operate with the Welsh rates of income tax component and also with the changes that have occurred in the Scottish situation.

Obviously, this instrument is in keeping with the established procedures relating to devolved powers and we will therefore not oppose it. However, I have one question for the Minister—it might be easier for him to write to me afterwards—about the arrangements for gift aid donations. The explanatory note states that the approach being taken will ensure that no donor will be made worse off as a result of having made a gift aid donation. Similarly, the impact assessment states that there will be no or negligible impact on charities as a result of these measures. Presumably, however, there would be some impact on the Exchequer, given that there is an assumption that individuals would be treated in practice as if they were still UK basic rate taxpayers, and obviously we already see some changes in the Scottish system around the income tax structure. It might therefore be helpful to have a little more information on this. However, that is really the only question I have about these measures.