Welsh Government: Comprehensive Spending Review

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

That is obviously one factor out of a whole raft of factors relating to the different demographics and needs of the nations and regions of the UK. The elderly population are, of course, protected by the triple lock on pensions. It means that their state pension has done pretty well during this Parliament.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the impact of the comprehensive spending review on Wales could have been radically different if the £9.6 billion of VAT uncollected over the last period had been collected? Perhaps if HMRC’s spending had not been reduced by 5%, that would have enabled it to collect what was due and Wales could even have had two prisons.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I did not know that the noble Baroness was in favour of such radical spending on prisons. In terms of the tax cap and VAT, the next figures on the tax cap will be coming out in September. HMRC has been very successful during this Parliament in collecting previously uncollected taxes from a range of sources and, as the noble Baroness knows, we have put a lot of additional resources, almost £1 billion, into tackling tax avoidance and evasion.