Finance Bill (First sitting)

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Barbara Keeley]

Indeed. I think one of my hon. Friends wanted to intervene.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I quite take the point you just made, but does my hon. Friend agree that it is slightly rich for Government Members to talk about the past when they were elected last time on a pledge to reduce the deficit by half by the end of the Parliament, which they have completely failed to achieve? Setting tax rates in stone will only further perpetuate their past failure.

[Barbara Keeley]

Absolutely. In talking more broadly, I have been trying to paint a picture of the impact of the set of policies in the Budget, not all of which are in the Bill.

We feel that the tax lock is a short-term measure. As I said earlier, we need to think about long-term reform to ensure an equitable and efficient tax system that provides good value for the taxpayer. There is also a need for long-term tax system planning. We welcome the consultations announced by the Government, but action is also needed on, for example, the alignment of national insurance contributions and income tax. That has been discussed many times, over and over again, but never acted upon, and I will be talking about that later in the debate.