Beth Winter
Main Page: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)Department Debates - View all Beth Winter's debates with the HM Treasury
(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Rishi Sunak
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is one thing to sit here and approve budgets for things; it is more important that we get on and actually deliver them. We need to make sure that our communities see tangible improvements in what is happening around them, and, particularly given the economic situation we face at the moment, there is a premium on doing that quickly. That is why we brought forward £5 billion-worth of projects and why we have initiated Project Speed to look at our entire process end to end—procurement, planning, construction and regulations approval—to ensure that we can deliver for our communities as quickly as possible.
Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab) [V]
Richard Murphy, a professor of political economy at City University in London, says that the Government have the potential to raise £174 billion a year if wealth was taxed at the same rate as income. That could cover the cost of the job retention scheme for over 12 months, according to the latest estimates from the Office for Budget Responsibility. Does the Chancellor believe that the time is right for a radical overhaul of our taxation system in order to fulfil the Prime Minister’s levelling-up promise, or is the truth that we are not really “all in this together”?
Rishi Sunak
No, I do not believe that now is the time, or ever would be the time, for a wealth tax. Now is the time to recognise the acute challenge that we face of unemployment and now is the time to act decisively and with compassion to provide hope and opportunity to the hundreds of thousands of young people, especially, who are at risk of scarring and losing the future that they deserve. That is why we have put in place the measures today, and that is what the focus should be on.