Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 19th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Leo Docherty]

Of course the best way to measure the effect of this is in employment growth. I expect these changes to further deepen the positive impact and the positive growth in employment that we have seen recently. Having considered these amendments, I am delighted to welcome the Bill wholeheartedly. Government Members must be confident about supporting our balanced approach, in contrast to the reckless and ideologically driven approach of the Labour party. We must consider this not just in economic or fiscal terms, but in human terms. Free-market capitalism has been one of the greatest forces that the world has ever seen. It has lifted 1.5 billion people out of poverty in the past 30 years. We should be confident about that, and we should be confident in our balanced and responsible approach. I am delighted to welcome the Bill this evening.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Before I speak to my new clause 18, I want to gently chastise the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham). He is not in his place at the moment, but I am sure that someone will respond to this for him. He very inappropriately raised quite selective data on inequalities, a subject that I spent nearly 20 years working on before I came to this place. He should know that we are the seventh most unequal country of the 30 developed countries in relation to income inequality. By some measures, we do worse than others, but overall, economic equality is not just about income; it is also about pay and wealth. We need to be mindful of this fact, and selectively reporting data is not a practice that we should be indulging in.

I should like to declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for health in all policies and as a fellow of the Faculty of Public Health, following more than 20 years of national and international work in this field prior to becoming an MP. It is lovely to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. New clause 18 would require the Government to commit to undertaking an assessment of the effects of the personal taxation measures in the Budget—including changes in the personal allowance and the higher rate threshold—on poverty, on the public’s health, including their life expectancy and healthy life expectancy, and in turn on public services.

The reason I have tabled this new clause is that, over the past eight years or so, I have seen the gains made under the previous Labour Government being totally reversed by this Government. Those gains included the reduction in the number of children and older people living in poverty and the improvements in health including an increase in our life expectancy and reductions in health inequalities. As the UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, said on Friday, the cuts and reforms introduced in the past few years have brought misery and torn at our social fabric. He went on:

“British compassion for those who are suffering has been replaced by a punitive, mean-spirited and callous approach”.

As I mentioned in my point of order earlier, I am afraid the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) demonstrated this exact point in his comments on the “The Andrew Marr Show” yesterday. The lack of humanity he showed in his response to the plight of Emily Lydon, who is being forced to sell her home because of issues with transitioning on to universal credit, shamed not only himself and the Government of which he is a Minister, but this whole House.

[Peter Dowd]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the massive cuts in the public health budgets that are now controlled by local authorities have simply made matters considerably worse in the public health field?

[Debbie Abrahams]

My hon. Friend is totally right. Those budgets were ring-fenced to start with, but they are now absolutely emaciated. This is stopping us doing the prevention work that we should be doing. We made massive investments in public health, and they were having a real impact in terms of health gain. I am afraid that that is now going by the bye.

We know that there are 14 million people living in poverty in the United Kingdom, 8 million of whom are working—the highest level ever. It is fine for Conservative Members to speak on a positive note about employment rates, but they should be asking themselves why we have such high levels of in-work poverty. That, too, brings shame on us. Two thirds of the 4 million children living in poverty are from working households. How on earth are young people expected to learn and to excel at school if they are constantly hungry?

[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Lady might not have had a chance to read it yet, but the all-party parliamentary group on infant feeding and inequalities, which I chair, produced a report that came out last week. It found that even working families are now struggling to meet the cost of infant formula, so they are having to stretch it out, to the detriment of their children’s health. So this problem is starting even before children go to school, because babies are not getting the nutrition that they need.

[Debbie Abrahams]

That is absolutely right. I will come on to some of the really worrying figures about how, from birth, our children are being affected because of the poverty that they are experiencing.

What about disabled people? Disabled people are twice as likely to live in poverty as non-disabled people because of the extra costs that they face around their disability. We have seen their social security support become absolutely emaciated. Given that we are the fifth richest country in the world, that is shocking—absolutely shocking. Four million disabled people are already living in poverty, with many now continually finding that they are becoming more and more isolated in their own homes.

Since 2015, as analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and others has shown, those who are in the lowest income decile have lost proportionately more income than any other group as a consequence of personal taxation and social security changes. That is the important thing. My new clause is not just about taxation. We cannot see that in isolation from how we then ensure, as a country, that we are supporting people on low incomes—and that support is completely inadequate. What was put forward in the Budget does not go anywhere near repairing the damage that was done in the summer Budget of 2015.

Last month’s Budget produces only marginal gains to the household income of the poorest, while reducing the number of higher-rate taxpayers by 300,000. The Government’s regressive measures have done nothing to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. When cuts to household incomes are combined with the cuts to public spending and services, the impact is even more dramatic, and again with disproportionate cuts to Government funding to towns and cities across the north, as evidence has repeatedly shown.

The effects of all this on life expectancy are now being seen, with health gains made over decades now falling away. Life expectancy has been stalling since 2011, and it is now flatlining, particularly in older age groups and for older women. In the same week—the very same week—that these data came out last year, the Government actually increased the state pension age. We know that our life expectancy is flatlining. For women—think about the 1950s-born women—it is going backwards, yet we are still putting up the state pension age. What is going on?

On top of this there are regional differences in how long people will live, with these health inequalities reflecting the socioeconomic inequalities across the country. Life expectancy for men in Windsor and Maidenhead stands at 81.6 years, while in my Oldham and Saddleworth constituency it is 77. Even within these areas, there are differences in how long people will live. Again, in the Windsor and Maidenhead local authority area, the life expectancy gap is 5.8 years for men and 4.8 years for women, while in my constituency it is 11.4 years for men and 10.7 years for women. These health inequalities are reflected right across the country. The gains Labour made in reducing health inequalities are now being reversed.

Similarly, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health reported last month that infant mortality has started to increase for the first time in 100 years. Four in 1,000 babies will not reach their first birthday in the UK, compared with 2.8 in the EU. These are the unacceptable consequences of austerity. I welcome the Department of Health and Social Care commissioning Public Health England to investigate the causes of this declining health status, but it is very late in the day. Public health specialists—renowned epidemiologists such as Professor Sir Michael Marmot, Professor Martin McKee and many others—have been calling for this for the past 18 months. We already know from the work that they have been doing that they are pointing the finger towards austerity. It is imperative that in addition to stopping austerity, and the misery and poverty that is being wrought, we tackle the inequalities within and between regions and communities.

An analysis of the effects of the Budget’s personal taxation measures is part of this, but it should not be seen in isolation. This would be outside the scope of the Bill, but the Government should be doing an analysis of their social security and public spending cuts. Reducing the gap between the rich and the poor is not just good for the economy. As evidence from totemic reports such as “The Spirit Level” shows, life expectancy then increases, as well as educational attainment, social mobility, trust, and much more. Fairer, more equal societies benefit everyone. Inequalities are not inevitable—they are socially reproduced and they can be changed—but to tackle them in all their forms takes commitment, it takes courage, and it takes leadership.

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[Jack Brereton]

I thank my hon. Friend for those comments, which show that the highest earners are paying their fair share, while the lowest paid in society are being supported as much as we can. That is what this Government have been doing: reducing taxes for the lowest paid in society and ensuring that the lowest paid can be paid more.

I reject many of the views of the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams). She made some comments about statistics and then used statistics in her own way. I will also refer to the G7 by saying that only in the UK and Japan have the lowest paid seen their wages grow in that time, and income inequality is lower than it was previously.

[Debbie Abrahams]

On a point of order, Dame Eleanor. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) suggests that I have used statistics inappropriately. I can cite all my sources of evidence; can he?

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Lady knows that that is not a point of order for the Chair; it is a point of debate, and, as I have said many times in here—and so has Mr Speaker—fortunately it is not the duty of the Chair to decide between one set of statistics and another. It all depends on how one applies the statistics, and the hon. Lady is perfectly at liberty to intervene on the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton), as is he to take an intervention from her, where they can continue the argument between them, but I will take no part in it.

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[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. This is why we also have the enterprise investment scheme and the seed enterprise investment scheme, and why we have made this change to entrepreneurs’ relief. An interesting fact is that of those who benefit from the entrepreneurs’ relief, around a third go on to reinvest in further businesses, so those tax savings are being reinvested in further economic activity.

I turn to the comments of the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd), who made a number of important points—or, should I say, he made a number of points about important matters? That might be slightly more to the point. However, I agree entirely with my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), who is no longer in his place; I have a great affection for the shadow Minister, particularly the Plutarch and Cicero quotes of which he is most fond. In fact, I will share one with him that does not apply to him in any way, of course:

“Any man can make mistakes, but only a fool persists in his error.”

I think that is probably more appropriate to the leader of his party than to the hon. Gentleman himself.

The hon. Gentleman raised the issues of the amount of tax burden shouldered by the wealthiest in the country. I remind him that under this Government the wealthiest 1% pay a full 28% of all income tax; it was about 24% when the Labour party was in power. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) pointed out, the lowest 20% of earners have benefited the most since 2010, from the combination of changes to tax, the national living wage and other factors.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the UN rapporteur and my appearance on Channel 4. I have to point out that the rapporteur produced, I think, a 24-page report based on around two weeks’ fact-finding in this country. The Government’s view is that the conclusions drawn were disproportionate to say the least. The hon. Gentleman suggested that I did not answer the questions put to me on that particular occasion, which I dispute. However, it is indisputable that he failed to answer the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) as to exactly what the Opposition would do with the personal allowance, given the exception that they are taking to our tax measures in the Budget.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Can the Minister recollect whether there has been a UN report in the last eight years that this Government have agreed with?

[Mel Stride]

Well, I am not here to debate UN reports of any description and whether the Government agree with them, other than to make the point that this particular report is rather disproportionate, given the remarks that I made earlier about what has happened to absolute poverty and children of workless households and so on.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

Perhaps this should be better drafted on the amendment paper, because the Opposition’s explanatory statement clearly refers to the “impact of clause 5”.

I agree that one should always take impacts into consideration, but I strongly believe that the issue raised by the hon. Gentleman of needing to address poverty is best addressed by allowing this Bill to go forward today, especially the elements that involve raising the level at which people start to pay tax, so that they can keep more money in their own pockets. That is fundamental to building a fairer economy, to having a lower gap between those on the highest incomes and those on the lowest incomes, and to encouraging more people in this country to take up the work opportunities available to them under this Conservative Government, with the continuing growth of the economy.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

It gives me great pleasure to speak to new clause 5, which is in my name and those of colleagues. As I have previously stated, I declare an interest as chair of the all-party group on health in all policies, and as a fellow of the Faculty of Public Health, following 20 or so years of national and international work in this field.

Under new clause 5, the Chancellor

“must review the public health and poverty effects of the provisions of this Act and lay a report of that review before the House of Commons within six months of the passing of this Act…A review…must consider…the effects of the provisions of this Act on the levels of relative and absolute poverty in the UK”.

There has been a lot of talk about absolute poverty levels, and we would of course welcome any reductions in absolute poverty levels. Those are the most severe levels of poverty, when people are unable to meet basic physiological needs, such as for food, water and shelter. However, relative poverty is a really important measure that we must reflect on, so I want to stress that the review would look at both relative and absolute poverty in the UK. I also want the review to assess

“the effects of the provisions of this Act on life expectancy and healthy life expectancy in the UK, and…the implications for the public finances of the public health effects of the provisions of this Act.”

Yesterday, the Government announced their new 10-year plan for the NHS. In his statement to the House, the Health Secretary talked about the importance of reducing health inequalities—absolutely, I could not agree more—and how we need to reduce the demands on health services. I do hope that the Government will take new clause 5 seriously as an opportunity to ensure that their policies actually meet the objectives they have set out, because it will help to do exactly that.

As important as the 10-year NHS plan is to improve our nation’s health, overwhelming evidence shows that the most important thing we can do is to reduce the poverty and inequality that too many of our citizens face today. The most effective way to do that is to focus upstream by assessing policies, as they are developed, for their effects on poverty, inequality and, ultimately, the health of our citizens. That was why I tabled the new clause.

As the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights said recently, the cuts and reforms introduced in the past few years have brought about misery and torn at the social fabric of our country. There are 14 million people living in relative poverty in the UK, 8 million of whom are working. That is the highest level ever—I advise those who may not be familiar with the most recent data to refer to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report published last month. Two thirds of the 4 million children living in poverty are from working households. How are young people who are living in extreme poverty and who are hungry going to excel at school?

What about disabled people? They are twice as likely to live in poverty as non-disabled people, because of the costs associated with their disability. As we heard from Labour’s Front-Bench spokesman, policies on not just taxation but public spending and particularly social security are having a devastating impact on disabled people, and that includes universal credit. More than 4 million disabled people are living in poverty today. They are increasingly isolated and confined to their homes, and I am afraid that the situation is going to get worse, because we have had no real confirmation from the Government of how they will protect disabled people in relation to universal credit.

As analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and others has shown, the lowest income decile has lost proportionately more income than any other group since 2015 as a consequence of personal taxation and social security changes. Last autumn’s Budget had only marginal impacts on the household income of the poorest, while reducing the number of higher rate taxpayers by 300,000. The Government’s regressive measures have done nothing to reduce the gap between the rich and poor.

Last week’s Fat Cat Friday heralded the fact that top executives now earn 133 times more than their average worker; it was 47 times more in 1998. In the first three days of January, FTSE 100 bosses earned what an average full-time worker will earn in a year. That is the unequal society that this Government have allowed to run rampant.

When cuts to household incomes are combined with the cuts to public spending and services, the impact is even more dramatic. We have seen disproportionate cuts in Government funding to towns and cities across the north. The effects of all this on life expectancy are now being seen, with gains made over decades falling away. Life expectancy has been stalling since 2011 and is now flatlining, particularly in older age groups, for older women and in deprived areas.

The regional differences in how long people live reflect the socioeconomic inequalities across the country. People may be aware of these figures, because I mentioned them when I spoke in November, but life expectancy for men in the Windsor and Maidenhead local authority, which covers the Prime Minister’s constituency, stands at 81.6 years, while in my Oldham and Saddleworth constituency, it is 77 years.

Even within those areas there are differences in how long people will live. In Windsor and Maidenhead, the life expectancy gap is 5.8 years for men and 4.8 years for women, while in my constituency there is an 11.4-year difference for men and a 10.7-year difference for women. We should really concentrate on those figures. Those health inequalities are reflected across the country.

Inequalities in life expectancy are mirrored by inequalities in healthy life expectancy—how long somebody can be expected to live in good health. Healthy life expectancy at birth across local authority areas varies by 21.5 years for women and 15.8 years for men. In addition, according to the Office for National Statistics, women’s healthy life expectancy at birth decreased by three months between 2009 and 2011. How have the Government responded? They have actually increased the state pension age: people are living shorter lives, and living shorter lives in good health, but we are increasing the time they will be expected to work.

The gains Labour made in reducing health inequalities are now being reversed. The recent Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health report showed that infant mortality has started to increase for the first time in 100 years. Four in 1,000 babies will not reach their first birthday in the UK, compared with 2.8 in the EU. Those are the unacceptable consequences of austerity.

Last month’s report by Public Health England investigating these inequalities in life expectancy confirmed what many of us have been saying: austerity has wrought misery and poverty, and has ultimately brought an early death for too many. If the Prime Minister is committed to tackling burning injustices and ending austerity, she needs to commit to her policies being independently assessed for their effects on poverty, inequality and public health, as my new clause outlines.

Reducing the gap between rich and poor benefits not just those who are lifted out of poverty. As the International Monetary Fund’s report five years ago showed, if we increase inequality, we reduce growth, and if we reduce inequality, we increase growth. Trickle-down economics has been shown not to work. As evidence from totemic reports such as “The Spirit Level” shows, society as a whole benefits from decreased inequality, with increases in life expectancy, educational attainment, social mobility, trust between communities and much more. Fairer, more equal societies benefit everyone. Inequalities are not inevitable; they are socially reproduced. They are about political choice, and they can be changed.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

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[Kevin Foster]

New clause 1 says what it says: it asks the Chancellor to produce a review of the impact of provisions and to lay a report of that review before the House. It does not require anything to be done. It does not set out a detailed list of policy changes and how they would be paid for. I do not really see where the hon. Lady is coming from. Members can generally debate all matters that are put before the House, what they believe their impact will be and whether they will make a difference.

I have to say—my Scottish colleagues like to raise this point—that in some areas, for example the Scottish education system, it would be interesting to look at how help is being provided to children so that they have a route out of poverty. In the past, the Scottish education system was one of the highest rated in the world, but I think the Scottish National party has now pulled Scotland out of the global rankings—not because it is going up them, it is safe to say. We can certainly have reviews both ways, and it will be interesting to hear whether comments from SNP Members reflect the impact that aspects of Scotland’s domestic policy, for which it has been responsible for most of the past decade, have had on some of the statistics they wish to complain about.

I welcome the fact that the Bill again increases the earnings that someone can receive before becoming an income tax payer.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Kevin Foster]

In a moment—I did not intervene on the hon. Lady.

Again, those with the lowest incomes will be able to keep more of what they earn. The days when earning £6,500 was considered enough for someone to start paying tax have disappeared. We were actually able to bring forward the increase in tax-free earnings for millions of people. That is a positive measure, which really makes work pay and helps the lowest earners the most.

[Debbie Abrahams]

What will be the effects of the Government’s increase in the personal allowance on the life expectancy of citizens of this country?

[Kevin Foster]

Any policy that encourages people to be in work and keep more of what they earn, and allows them to save, will help improve their overall health. One of the things that most improves someone’s life outcomes is being in employment. [Interruption.] It is bizarre to be heckled for saying that.

[Kevin Foster]

As always, my hon. Friend makes a well argued and succinct point. He demonstrates the positive difference that Government policies are making for his constituents and the UK as a whole. It must be said that that difference is being made by a whole package of policies, not just by the Bill. I know that a range of measures will help tackle the health inequalities in my patch, including intervention, better services, better urgent care, ensuring that we realise the benefits of technology in primary care, dealing with things such as rising obesity, ensuring that people have proper diets and continuing the welcome decrease in the smoking rate. It is bizarre that those who can least afford to smoke end up being impacted most by it, worsening already poor health inequalities.

The Bill is welcome. I do not think either new clause brings much to the debate, other than highlighting that people want reviews and statistics. With a genuine review, we think about our policy conclusions at the end, yet we hear Opposition Members say, “We want a review—but by the way, here are all our conclusions about the policies we believe should be adopted, even though we can’t really outline how we would pay for them, other than with a massive borrowing splurge that would need to be paid for by a future generation.”

It is welcome that, as has been pointed out, the number of people in absolute poverty is at a record low —1 million fewer people overall and 300,000 fewer children are in absolute poverty. [Interruption.] We hear a groan, but those are the statistics—the sorts of statistics the Opposition seek through their new clauses. The number of children living in workless homes has fallen to its lowest since records began. Being in work makes a positive difference to people’s lives.

[Debbie Abrahams]

rose—

[Kevin Foster]

If the hon. Lady wishes to argue with that, I am only too happy to give way.

[Debbie Abrahams]

No, I would like to ask the hon. Gentleman whether he believes in policy-based evidence or evidence-based policy. He seems to be talking about policy-based evidence. His argument is absolutely facile. He has no evidence to support it. It is absolutely ridiculous.

[Kevin Foster]

For policy-based evidence, we need only look to those who continue to argue that the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor should be leading this country, despite the increasing evidence of what their economic policies would do to this nation. Anyone who takes a trip to Caracas will see the outcome there, and still some argue that we should bring those policies to this country. [Interruption.] It is lovely to be heckled all the way through my speech. I sometimes do it myself.

It is somewhat strange for the Government to be accused of not basing their policies on evidence by a party that crashed the UK economy eight years ago, and to continue to hear the excuse that the financial crash merely happened because of bankers in the United States, despite it being a former Labour Prime Minister who, just before the problem with the banks, predicted that a golden era for the City of London was about to start and set up the regulatory system that so badly failed to prevent this country from being exposed to the financial risks and shockwaves. It is somewhat strange to get that lecture on evidence, when there is plenty of evidence of what went wrong a decade ago, when we were left needing to make savings that Labour was planning to make anyway.

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[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker). In fact, I agree with some of the sentiments that he has expressed. The level of poverty is still unacceptable, and that makes me unhappy. I am also unhappy about the level of inequality across the country and in my own constituency, but I want to support a Government who are doing something about it, not just through words but through actually taking steps to make these things better.

I have enormous respect for the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), who introduced her new clause 1 earlier. It proposes a review of the impact of clause 5 on child poverty and equality—that is, the impact of raising the level of the personal allowance after which people start paying tax. She also spoke to new clause 5, which proposes a review of the public health and poverty impact of the whole Act. It is enormously tempting to say yes, we should do this. All of us in this Chamber care enormously about poverty and inequality levels. I have a background in healthcare, and I feel very strongly about reducing health inequalities. I am also conscious of the different life expectancies within my own constituency, which are substantial, but we must be careful not to be lured into a sense that reviewing a specific part of an Act will give us an accurate picture of all that is being done and of its impact on, for example, reducing health inequalities.

[Debbie Abrahams]

I want to reciprocate by expressing my respect for the hon. Lady and for the work that she does in this place on mental health. I have huge experience in this area. I spent more than 20 years working on health inequalities and specifically on the assessment of policies to ensure that we get them right. That is part of the reason that I came into Parliament, and I know that this can be done. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) said, if we are all so committed to reducing poverty and inequality, let us assess our policies before they are implemented, to ensure that they do just that.

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The crux of the argument against new clauses 1 and 5 is that the figures that are being asked for by way of review are either difficult to establish and disproportionately expensive to corral together, or do not lend themselves—even if we did manage to get them—to any meaningful form of analysis. That is the context in which we should consider new clauses 1 and 5. If I may, I will turn now to their specifics.

[Debbie Abrahams]

I do not know whether the Minister is aware of this, but the European Commission does this sort of analysis every year on its programme of policies, so it is not that this cannot be done. Its work covers not just quantitative but qualitative data, which relates to the points my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) made. There needs to be more than what the Government are doing—they do not know what the impacts of their policies will be.

[Mel Stride]

I think I have been misunderstood, and I apologise to the hon. Lady if I was not clear enough. I am certainly not saying that data does not matter—quite the opposite. What I am saying is that we need to have the right kind of data for the exercise to be meaningful and worth while.

New clause 1 would require the Chancellor to report on the impact of changes to the personal allowance and the higher rate threshold on households of different levels of income, on child poverty, on equality and on those individuals with protected characteristics. New clause 5 would require the Chancellor to report on the Bill’s effect on child poverty, life expectancy and public health.

Let me first address the question of the Treasury’s compliance with its public sector equality duty, as referenced in new clause 1(2)(c). Equality and fairness continue to lie right at the heart of the Government’s agenda, and we take our compliance with this duty deeply seriously while deciding policy. That means that Government decisions are explicitly informed by the evidence available of the implications of those decisions for those sharing protected characteristics. I have no hesitation in saying that the Treasury complies with the public sector equality duty.

Further provisions in new clauses 1 and 5 call for the publication of different forms of analysis for clause 5 and for the whole Bill in turn. The Government have been, and continue to be, transparent—more transparent than any other. Changes to the tax system are always accompanied by a tax information and impact note, and each Budget is accompanied by detailed distributional analysis.

TIINs, in particular, are relevant to the questions discussed today. These notes provide Parliament and taxpayers with information on the expected effects of changes to the tax system, and form a vital part of the Government’s commitment to transparency and accountability around tax decisions. In the context of clause 5, for example, the TIIN already sets out the impact on groups of taxpayers according to their age, gender and income tax band, and this data is readily available to HMRC through tax returns.