Taxation (Living Wage)

Guto Bebb Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on securing this important debate. It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) who always speaks so passionately on behalf of his constituents in Northern Ireland. I noticed time and again from the statistics he offered that Northern Ireland and Wales are often classified as the poorest parts of the United Kingdom. That makes the 10p tax rate an incredibly important issue for my constituents in north Wales.

We must congratulate the coalition Government on the significant increase in the personal allowance. It has meant a huge cost to the Government, but it is the correct decision and it highlights the coalition’s strong belief that the best way to help people is to allow them to keep more of the money they earn. That is the big difference between the coalition and the Labour Opposition, who believe that the best way to help the poorest in society is to take money from them and give some of it back, depending on their circumstances. I strongly believe that we should try to ensure that people keep as much of the money they earn as possible. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow made another important point: I support the aspiration of a £10,000 personal allowance, but we must ensure at some point that people understand that they must contribute to society.

I welcome the movement in the personal allowance, which means, for example, that the husband and wife who run a small business as owners of a small guest house in my constituency can earn £20,000 from it without paying tax. That is an incentive for them to work and make a success of the business; but it is important that people understand that there is a point where they must contribute towards what the state provides. It is all very well to ask and demand more from the Government, but there is an understanding, which includes everyone, of a need to contribute. That is why it is important to focus our attention, once the £10,000 personal allowance is secured, on continuing to support the lowest paid, but in a possibly more cost-effective manner. Let us be honest: a 10p tax rate would cost half the amount of an increase in the personal allowance. There would be an impact on more people. We should support the aim of securing a new 10p tax rate, because it would help the poorest paid but also emphasise the need for everyone who works to contribute to society at some stage. I strongly support that aspiration.

I have nothing but sympathy with the Minister on the issues that the Treasury faces. The previous Government left them with a terrible situation—and I am not talking just about the financial deficit. The complication beyond recognition of the tax system is frankly shameful. In a recent article Philip Booth included a table that highlighted the fact that the marginal tax and benefit withdrawal rates are now out of tune. That results in a situation where someone earning between £8,000 and £38,000 is paying, between benefit withdrawal, tax payments and national insurance payments—if that person has a family of three children—a 73% marginal tax rate. That then falls to 42%; then it goes up again if people earn more than £100,000, because of the personal allowance withdrawal. Then it goes down again. The progressive tax system, which everyone in this country believed in, has been completely distorted by a process in which benefits, personal allowances and so forth have been withdrawn in response to a financial crisis. That has left a distorted tax system that goes against something the coalition is strongly in favour of—the aspiration to support people who want to support themselves. It is difficult to see how a tax system that now has so many distortions is doing the job it is meant to do, of supporting such people.

The Treasury faces a huge job in dealing with the deficit, but in due course it will need to think carefully about how to make the tax system fairer, with a progressive element rather than the present slightly distorting effect. There are opportunities to change it. Universal credit will deal with many anomalies at the lower end of the income spectrum, but we must recognise our responsibility to see the tax system for what it is—a failing system whose distortions run counter to the work ethic. The counter-productive element of the tax system is reflected in the fall in the 40% tax rate threshold. The fact that it will hit people on an income of £34,000 from April is counterbalanced by an increase in the personal allowance, but we must be aware that people in fairly modest positions in society are now being expected to pay a higher rate of tax, something that previous generations would not have anticipated. We have a responsibility to deal with that issue. The important thing for the Government is to try to provide circumstances that will support people in work.

The Northern Ireland situation has been discussed, and it is similar to that in Wales. We need to congratulate the Government on the fact that the tax payments of a person on the minimum wage, for example, have been halved as a result of changes to the personal allowance. There is a question whether it is justifiable to call something a minimum wage while still expecting someone to pay tax on it. However, I want to sound a note of caution about the living wage. I support the aspiration, but I question the affordability of it. I specifically question the fact that local authorities in Wales are saying they will pay all their staff a living wage. Is that a reasonable way to deal with the issue? In effect, it is using money raised in taxes from people who are often not particularly well paid to provide a benefit for people in the public sector, who may have better benefits than other workers. I question that: by bringing in a living wage for some workers, the public sector in some local authorities reinforces the view that people who work for the public sector somehow deserve better pay than those who work in the private sector. I am hugely concerned about it.

There is a saying in Welsh, which I hope that you will allow me use, Mr Robertson: “Hael yw Hywel ar bwrs y wlad,” which means it is very easy to be generous with other people’s money. When I hear of local authorities in Wales that are thinking about taking that course, I ask them to reflect on where the money comes from in the first instance; because 75% to 80% of local government expenditure in Wales is from general taxation, so lower paid workers in other parts of the economy will be contributing to enabling councillors to feel good about themselves. The aspiration should be for people on comparatively low pay not to have to pay significant amounts of tax. Therefore the increase in the personal allowance, coupled with the 10p tax rate, would make a huge difference.

I support the aspirations behind the debate today, but we must consider the issues in the context of the complexity of the tax system, and the challenges to the Government in dealing with the deficit. However, a challenge that is equally crucial is to set out plans to introduce a 10p tax rate and deal with a tax system that is no longer progressive in the way it collects taxes from families. That may be something for a second term, but I am confident that there will be one. I am sure that after 2015 a Conservative Government will be able to deal with the anomalies and ensure that the tax system is fair to all—whether those at the lower end of the tax spectrum or a family earning perhaps £40,000 or £50,000 per annum.

[John Robertson (in the Chair)]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman is ready to help the Hansard people with his speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s concern, but I am trying to discuss the premise proposed for debate today by the hon. Member for Harlow, which is people on low pay and the living wage campaign, so I will return to my point on the national minimum wage, which transformed the lives of millions. The policy is now taken for granted, but it was implemented in the face of often strident opposition, in particular by members of the Conservative party. Despite significant opposition at the time, however, it now seems to be universally accepted as an important aspect of our economy in ensuring fairness across the board.

The squeeze on people’s incomes and the ever-increasing cost of living, of which we are all aware and which we have all seen among our constituents, mean that for many the national minimum wage is simply not enough to make ends meet. Thus, a higher rate of £7.45 per hour outside London and £8.55 per hour inside the capital has been calculated by the Centre for Research in Social Policy as the level required to enable people to provide for themselves and their families.

[Guto Bebb]

On the minimum wage, although I was not in this place for the debates, my recollection is that the issue was about the scale and level of the minimum wage. My real concern was that the state was imposing a minimum wage on small businesses but also helping itself to tax from that minimum wage. Surely it is a good thing that the coalition is ensuring that people on the minimum wage are now paying significantly less tax.

[Catherine McKinnell]

Could the hon. Gentleman repeat his premise about how the Government are helping people on the minimum wage to pay less tax?

[Guto Bebb]

The point is simple. The Labour Government brought in a minimum wage, and yet the Government of the day helped themselves to significant amounts of tax from that minimum wage. In other words, small businesses in constituencies such as mine felt that they were being forced to pay higher levels of wages in order for the Government to be able to help themselves to tax. Surely this Government, by increasing the personal allowance so significantly, have reduced the tax take from those on the minimum wage.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I accept that the Government have increased the personal allowance, but their other policy changes have impacted on those very people whom they purport to be helping, with a real-terms effect on families up and down the country. In fact, the hon. Member for Cleethorpes admitted that his constituents are certainly not happy about some of the changes and their impact. I know for certain that my constituents would agree, but the shocking fact is that almost 5 million people across the UK are currently paid less than the living wage, and 3 million of them are women. The Government may believe that the way to motivate people on low incomes is to pay them less, and the way to motivate those on the highest incomes is to pay them more, but the Labour party believes that this is an issue of dignity at work and social justice.