Finance (No. 2) Bill

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 1st December 2021 Commons Chamber

On the national insurance hike, it has been said many times—I make no apology for saying it again—that it breaks a clear manifesto promise of the Conservative party. Even with the increase in dividend taxes in the Bill, the burden still falls disproportionately on the shoulders of the lowest earners, the youngest and those with the fewest assets. We have to ask ourselves whether the Government are on the side of those who work hard, play fair and appreciate the urgency of the climate emergency that we face. Sadly, given the Bill and their opposition to the amendments that have been tabled, I have to say that the answer is no.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I confirm that the Liberal Democrats will not be supporting the Bill and will be supporting the Opposition amendments. There are several specific reasons for that, which I have expressed previously, including that the Bill fails to address the cost of living crisis in this country and fails to adequately address the need to have and to shift to a greener, more sustainable economy. It also fails to address the concerns that the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson) expressed about the changes to the banking surcharge, which strike many people in the country as inappropriate at the moment.

I will focus on one issue that is dealt with by new clause 17, which has been tabled by my party. The Minister mentioned the innocuously titled basis pay rate and the basis period reform. One of the frustrating things about the Bill is that the more we look into the detail, the more we find to object to. Hidden in it are huge accounting changes that will make life much harder for tens of thousands of farming businesses, and other partnerships and sole traders around the country. Under the basis period reform, farmers will have to submit two tax returns instead of one, doubling their administrative burden.

Proud farming communities from Shetland to Shropshire are worried about the costs and burdens that will come with those changes. In Shropshire alone, there are more than 6,000 partners and directors in the sector who are likely to be affected by the reforms. Like many others from communities in the so-called blue wall, they find that the Government are taking them for granted and saddling them with administrative burdens and costs—and yet more promises that somehow seem to be ignored. They will force farmers to submit estimated tax returns when there is no good way of knowing the value of a crop yield when it is still in the ground.

We would like Ministers to put those plans on hold immediately and listen to farmers’ concerns. They should at least offer them an extended deadline, so that they do not have to estimate their profits but can submit just one final tax return. They should also explore the options laid out by the Office of Tax Simplification about changing the tax year to a 31 December end date. Farmers across the country have already seen their basic payments cut by at least 5% and could be facing even more costs. They deserve better. This is unfair and counterproductive, and it is yet another reason why people are disappointed with what they have heard about this Finance Bill.

Therefore, the Liberal Democrats will not vote to support the Bill, but we will support the Opposition amendments.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Eleanor. I wish to speak in support of new clause 16, which is in my name, and new clause 8, which has been tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett).

Both new clauses aim to tackle the gross injustice of taxes on share dividends being set at less than income tax rates. They are both part of a wider push for tax justice and wealth taxes—a push made ever more urgent by the growing inequality that we have seen throughout the pandemic. I also support the new clause on this issue from the Leader of the Opposition and the new clause on the banking surcharge. It is shameful that the Government are cutting taxes for banks while increasing the tax burden on working families.

Faced with a backlash over their plans to impose tax rises on working people, the Government made a very limited change, increasing the taxes on share dividends by 1.25%. That was done to try to give the impression that they were sharing the burden of the so-called health and care levy equally between ordinary working people and those lucky enough to live off their wealth. But that was just smoke and mirrors, done solely to deflect the media and distract the public, not to help to actually secure economic justice. That is obvious from the amounts that will be raised by the so-called health and social care levy. The national insurance increases will raise £11.4 billion a year, while the increases in tax on share dividends will raise just £600 million a year. We need to be clear about this: the Government’s change is woefully inadequate.

However, this can act as a watershed moment when we finally get to grips with the great injustice in our tax system that wealth is often taxed at much lower rates than income tax. It is clear, is it not, that our economy is rigged in the interests of the 1%? That has become even clearer during the pandemic, when we have seen the corrupt contracts that have been handed out or the fact that the billionaires have increased their wealth by £290 million a day while food bank use has hit record levels. How completely grotesque.

Our tax system is also rigged in the interests of the top 1%. One obvious way in which that happens is that those with wealth get special discounts on their tax rates. They pay lower tax rates than the vast majority, who have to go out to work day in, day out. My new clause seeks to put a stop to that racket, to that injustice. Why on earth is someone lucky enough to have inherited millions of pounds of shares and who now lives comfortably off their annual share dividends allowed to pay a lower rate of tax than people who have to go to work day in, day out? That is completely unfair and completely unjustifiable. It needs to change. Economic justice demands change, and my new clause would deliver that. It would raise tens of billions of pounds that could go towards funding a national care service, for example, in a progressive way by taxing wealth and not by hitting the pockets of working people.

Let us look at how this rigged system works in practice for those lucky enough to be in the top 1% of incomes. They currently have to pay a 45% rate of tax on income but pay way less on earnings from share dividends: just 38.1%. That tax discount applies even though payments to shareholders primarily go to a very wealthy minority. One quarter of the total income of the richest 1% is generated from dividends and partnership income alone.

The Government try to give the impression that we somehow live in some kind of shareholding democracy where everybody has an equal stake in owning shares, but I am afraid that that is just not true. TUC research shows that UK taxpayers earning over £150,000, which is just 1% of all taxpayers, captured about 22% of all direct income from UK dividends, so the wealthiest accumulate their money from share dividends instead of working, and the Government reward them for this with a tax discount. That is totally unjustifiable, totally unreasonable and totally indefensible.

The changes I have called for in new clause 16 would raise billions for the Treasury—billions that could go towards funding a national care service. Institute for Public Policy Research calculations in 2019 estimated that this would raise £29 billion over the lifetime of this Parliament, even after accounting for behavioural changes. But I am afraid the Conservative party does not want to tax the income of the super-rich who bankroll the party. This new clause has been tabled as an opportunity for the Government to really tackle the injustice in our taxation. It is absolutely outrageous and it needs to change, and that is why I put down this amendment.