Income Tax
Debate between Chris Leslie and Paul Uppal(10 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Chris Leslie
People faced a double whammy—the tax and the changes to their tax credits by the Conservatives, together with that squeeze on living standards as a result of wages failing to keep pace with prices.
We are doing the Government a favour today. We are trying our best to persuade them of the error of their ways. We have tabled a motion that allows them to put right the wrong they have done, get their priorities right and admit it was a mistake to reduce the top rate of income tax at a time when working people are not feeling any recovery.
Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)
For nearly half a century the Indians and the Chinese pursued a punitive ideological politics. Since they turned away from that, they have pulled hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. With the exception of the Labour Front-Bench team and President Hollande, I think the hon. Gentleman will find himself very much in the minority. As Abraham Lincoln famously said, you never pull anybody up by pulling somebody down. Is not this debate about the Opposition’s political opportunism, rather than long-term economic reality?
Chris Leslie
There we have it—the voice of the ideological right wing of the Conservative party, which says we should not have progressive taxation in this country. The hon. Gentleman almost espouses the flat tax mentality, on which we know the Conservatives all agree. Perhaps he wants to elaborate.
Paul Uppal
Unlike those on the Opposition Benches, I have been poor—dirt poor. [Interruption.] I do not want any sympathy. The reason I sit on the Conservative Benches is that I want to empower the people in my constituency and give them a ladder of opportunity to escape from poverty, not keep them in poverty, which is the position of those on the Opposition Benches.
Chris Leslie
That ladder of opportunity is being pulled up by the hon. Gentleman. At a time when people’s pay is failing to keep pace with prices and the burden of taxation is greater, he not only votes to give tax benefits to the wealthiest in society but says, “If you’re lower or middle income, you have to pay higher VAT. You’re not going to leave the country. We have to reduce those tax credits and all the support that has been available before, but if you’re a wealthy individual in society, if you’re earning over £150,000, we have to cut your taxes because you might just leave the country.” That is not what has happened.
Chris Leslie
I will give way to my right hon. Friend, but first I want to hear a little more of the logic and the ideology espoused by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal).
Paul Uppal
If the hon. Gentleman is correct in what he says, will he explain why, under the Labour Government, venture capitalists paid 10% tax, as opposed to their cleaners, who paid 20%, whereas they had previously paid 10%?
Chris Leslie
Again, Conservative Members do not want to talk about the 50p rate of tax. They will find any example of other things. They will talk about the personal allowance or venture capital arrangements, and maybe we will get them on to VAT. We want to know the ideological basis for cutting the 50p rate to 45p. They may have thought that that would suddenly enliven enterprise across the country, but it has not done so.