Finance Bill

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the Government have been unable to drive forward the economy on any basis of productivity and are therefore relying on property price speculation, and that this would be a way to drive up property prices to cover up their failings in other parts of the economy?

[Rob Marris]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and if I can catch the Speaker’s eye on Third Reading I will be making points along those lines. The true state of our economy, driven by a housing bubble and household debt, is actually quite frightening. In terms of inheritance tax, new clause 9 simply asks the Government, after the Budget is in surplus, to look at the inheritance tax regime. Of course the Government could do it now, and I would welcome a commitment from the Minister, if he is able to make one, that the Government will do so, because the tax breaks in this Finance Bill will be about £940 million a year by 2020-21. That does not seem a wise use of revenue when it is coming in from some of the most well-to-do families—a small number of estates, as I said. It is not a good idea to be in one sense spending money in that way. I appreciate that it is not actually spending money because, technically, it is a case of simply not collecting it in taxes, but in everyday terms it is spending money, because so much of what we do in this House is to do with priorities, and so much of the prioritisation we decide on is predicated on how much money there is with which to do those things.

[Christian Matheson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we cannot afford this measure in this Parliament, not least because it will cost, as the Budget Red Book tells us, about £2.5 billion in this Parliament?

[Rob Marris]

It is difficult to tell what we can afford as the Conservative party, in government since 2010, has consistently failed to meet financial targets for dealing with the deficit. The Opposition agree with the Government that the deficit needs to be tackled, but we disagree on the way in which it should be done. Forgoing £2.5 billion —if that is the exact figure, and I think my hon. Friend is probably right that it is of that order of magnitude—in a very regressive way is something that Labour Members would not countenance, but we need to look at the whole regime, hence the wording of new clause 9.

There will also be complications with the wording of the inheritance tax provisions. There is a feeling of unfairness among some as to the definitions—which I will not go through tonight—of a linear descendent. Many, if not all, Members will know from our own lives, advice surgeries and places we live that the definition of a family and those who are regarded by someone as being a member of their family are somewhat fluid in our society, and have become much more fluid in the last 50 years in terms of social recognition. For example, the Labour Government introduced civil partnership legislation, which I welcome—it is possible this Parliament will extend that to opposite-sex couples—and, commendably, in the last Parliament gay marriage was put on to the statute book. Those are concrete examples, dealt with by this House, of the fluidity and changing nature of family structures, but the provisions in this Bill rather lock in whether somebody is, or is not, regarded as a member of a family. Inheritance tax in this Bill is a bit of a problem, therefore, and I urge the Government to accept new clause 9 and amendment 89, which in a sense is a stand part motion.

I will now turn to value added tax, enforcement by deduction from accounts and the climate change levy—unless any Member wishes a quick run-around again on inheritance tax, but I suspect not.