21 Huw Irranca-Davies debates involving the Department for Work and Pensions

Capital Gains Tax (Rates)

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts
Monday 28th June 2010

(14 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Danny Alexander Portrait Danny Alexander
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No party went into the election promising to increase VAT, but the hon. Gentleman should make no mistake: the rise in VAT is a result of the public finances that we inherited from his Front-Bench colleagues. One could say that it is a Labour inheritance tax.

Huw Irranca-Davies Portrait Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
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Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Danny Alexander Portrait Danny Alexander
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I shall press on. I have already given way.

In response to the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George), I can say that we have already demonstrated our commitment to transparency by publishing data on the distributional impact of the Budget measures, which has never been done before. We are committed to continuing with that level of transparency in future fiscal events, and we will continue to look at whether we can further improve the breadth of information provided. Parliament will, of course, as my hon. Friend requested, continue to have full scrutiny of the Government’s decisions, and I hope that the information that we have already provided, and will provide in future, will facilitate that debate.