Finance Bill

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

Does the hon. Gentleman get it? Does he not understand the anger of even middle-income earners, who pay their taxes, work hard and cannot use any schemes such as those he has been suggesting which are open to those on ludicrous sums of £250,000 a week? Many people in Somerset must be in this category?

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

rose—

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I give way to my hon. Friend.

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[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Does that not make the point? If there was this anger, thousands of people would not queue in lines to get their season ticket for Manchester United at the beginning of each season and millions of people would not be watching on television, because the strength of anger that Labour Members seem to want to articulate would mean that people would boycott these disgraceful sports and pursuits.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and he has hit the nail on the head.

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[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

In 1979, when the hon. Gentleman had a real socialist Government, that figure was about 8%. One can see that massive expansion in the burden of tax falling on the richest in society—the ones who can bear that burden—comes when the rate is lower. That is an excellent part of this Budget; perhaps the best part.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank my hon. Friend for being so generous in giving way. If one could possibly take the politics out of tax, surely one would want to hit the tax rate that brings in the most revenue, in order to pay for hospitals and everything else. If that tax rate was proved to be lower than the higher tax rate, one would like to think that common sense would prevail and that Ministers would choose the tax rate that would bring in the money.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I believe that there are studies that show that that rate would be 36p in the pound. I hope that the Minister is listening and that we can look forward in the next Budget to the rate being lower still.

We have heard discussion about the morality of tax rates, and I dispute that there is morality to tax rates, but there is a perniciousness about taxing for the sake of it and about taxing for the sake of envy, because people do not like the rich or because they wish to crush the income earners in society. That is not the type of envy that we have on these Benches. Even our Liberal Democrat friends do not suffer from that type of envy; they recovered from it after their experience in 1909.

We Conservative Members have never had that type of envy. We recognise that if the maximum amount of revenue is raised, it is better for everybody. We heard our Prime Minister giving an invitation to our friends in France, saying, “Come and join us. The weather here may be rainy, but the tax rate is only 45p in the pound, compared with the 75p that you may have to pay.”

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[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am always grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s thoughtful interventions, but one of the greatest mistakes that Governments make is to have this merry-go-round of taxation and benefits, whereby we tax people and then pay them back their own money in benefits, with a cut taken for administration in between. It is much more sensible to take people out of tax altogether. I would like the threshold to be raised considerably higher, basically towards average earnings, so that the bulk of people do not pay tax at all on what they earn, but do, of course, pay in other ways, through other taxes—through indirect taxation. That takes away the major disincentive to go into employment, and lets people benefit from the fruits of their labour. That is an important proposal that has come forward, and it is popular throughout the country, though I would not say that there was literally cheering in the streets.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

My hon. Friend talked about the recycling of money through the system. In May 2010, nine out of 10 families were able to claim some sort of tax credit. Surely it is completely wrong if everybody —or 90% of people—is relying on the state to give them money back in some grandiose scheme. Surely taking people out of tax is the right way to get rid of that problem.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am in entire agreement with my hon. Friend. We want to get people out of the tax and benefits system as much as possible so that they can stand on their own two feet. That is what people want.

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[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

We have had an interesting debate that has addressed what are perhaps two of the most controversial issues in the Budget: the change to age-related allowances and the reduction in the 50p rate of income tax. The debate has lasted three hours, but at one stage I thought we might finish early, until we heard the tour de force from my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). I hope that I will have time to respond to the various comments that have been made. We heard the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) quote Groucho Marx, which I suppose is an improvement on other Marxes who might have been quoted, although I was reminded of the other Groucho Marx line:

“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it”,

at least until I heard the speech from my hon. Friend.

The changes the Government have made to the rates and thresholds of income tax will provide a competitive platform for our tax system while also ensuring fairness. The measures in the Bill will reduce the additional rate of income tax in 2013-14 to 45p, increase the personal allowance to £8,105 and simplify the working of age-related allowances. I will discuss each of the amendments in turn, but it is important first to set out why the Government have taken this approach.

The fact is that the 50p rate of income tax has not raised the revenue it was intended to raise. It is currently the highest statutory income tax rate in the G20. When we came to power we inherited an economy that the previous Government had driven into a parlous state, with regard to not only the state of the public finances but our overall competitiveness. The fact is that the 50p rate came in only at the fag end of the Labour Government, who for 13 years had kept the 40p rate, and when they brought in the 50p rate they declared that it was temporary. There was a reason for that: they recognised that the 50p rate would damage our competitiveness. The hard evidence backs up that claim. The report by HMRC sets out that the 50p rate is distortive, damaging to international competitiveness and an economically inefficient way of raising revenue.

In short, the 50p rate is a failed policy. We were told that it would raise over £2 billion and, given the crippling deficit we were left, that was not something we could just wave away as if it did not matter. However, higher taxes are worth while only if they raise more revenue, and the analysis by HMRC shows that at best the yield would be £1 billion, and at worst it may raise nothing at all. That is because the behavioural response has been substantially larger than expected.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

One part of HMRC’s gaming for this actually did not look at how much extra money would come in as a result of the incentive to pay the lower level of tax. Surely it would have been worth while doing that so that we could prove to some of those who do not understand simple economics that it would be worth while.

[Mr Gauke]

HMRC’s analysis, which is a good piece of work, showed through two different mechanisms that the reality was that the amount being raised was somewhat less than had been predicted. The fact is that the behavioural response was much greater.

Let me say a word or two about that. To start with, HMRC estimates that as much as £18 billion worth of forestalling took place in 2009-10, of which about two thirds, up to £11.3 billion, has been estimated to unwind in 2010-11, but this forestalling was not factored into the original revenue calculations. Furthermore, HMRC estimates that between one third and one half of the behavioural effect comes from genuine reductions in income. We have heard this evening that this is all about tax avoidance, that tax avoidance increases when we increase the rate and that we can be sure we will get the benefit of it as we unwind, but the reality is that between one third and one half of this was simply the result of less economic activity, because people reduced their hours and participation in the UK labour market and moved elsewhere.