Tax: Church Action for Tax Justice Reports

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans on securing this important debate.

There is absolutely no doubt that there are major tax and welfare inequalities. If the Government are serious about their levelling-up agenda, to minimise and eliminate those inequalities they need urgently to look at tax reform, to ensure that it is less regressive and more progressive, and at welfare reform, to ensure that the current inequalities are eliminated, with a particular focus on universal credit.

I also commend the campaign organisation Church Action for Tax Justice, which published two reports containing proposals on creating a fairer tax system, many of which I find myself in total agreement with.

This debate is very apposite at the moment, in that the whole Covid pandemic has compounded the situation, with rising levels of poverty, the growing use of food banks and many people out of work, and the uncertainty of whether that work will exist several months down the road, whenever we are on the other side of the vaccination implementation programme and, we hope, the pandemic withers away. However, there is absolutely no doubt that those inequalities have to be addressed through reform of the taxation system and of welfare. Both go hand in hand.

Other organisations as well as Church Action for Tax Justice have referred to these issues. Only last week, in its most recent report, the Commons Public Accounts Committee stated that

“Quirks in the tax system”


have meant that groups of workers, including freelancers and self-employed people who recently moved on to company payrolls or who work on a series of short-term employment contracts with gaps in between, have been ineligible for furlough payments, and thus that needs to be looked at as well. The chair of the committee, Meg Hillier, asserts that

“out-of-date tax systems are one of the barriers to getting help to a significant number of struggling taxpayers who should be entitled to support.”

In conclusion, can the Minister advise us when the Government will hold the consultation on tax evasion measures this year, which was promised by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in July 2020?