Covid-19: People Living in Poverty

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Thursday 30th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, universal basic income has been mentioned, but it is a panacea which is at best inadequate to meet people’s needs, and in the current financial state in which we find ourselves, with a forecast deficit of 20% of GDP and debt rising to more than 100% of GDP this year, it is completely unaffordable. Therefore, the immediate answer must necessarily be to raise taxes. I urge the Government to look at the experience of the German solidarity tax, which was brought in in 1991 to pay for unification. The only caveat is that if the Government bring in a tax, it must be short-term and time-limited as a solidarity tax, and it must be progressive: the burden must fall on those with the broadest shoulders—in other words, the higher-rate taxpayers. Will the Minister therefore agree to look beyond Treasury orthodoxy to see what other countries are doing successfully to pay for this kind of enormous fiscal and monetary shock?