Amendment of the Law

Debate between Iain Wright and Pauline Latham

Thursday 22nd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Pauline Latham]

The hon. Gentleman should not worry; I will try, although I am disappointed that I have only five minutes to do so.

The Growing Places fund for the local enterprise partnership in my area will bring in an additional £8.5 million, which will be a tremendous boost to the area. Nobody over there on the Opposition Benches really seems to be all that pleased about the largest increase in the personal allowance for 30 years, which I find staggering. I would have thought that they would support the measure, which will take a lot of people out of tax altogether; indeed, 24 million people in this country will benefit from that.

[Mr Iain Wright]

The hon. Lady has mentioned the personal allowance and talked about those of us on the Opposition Benches being miserable. Does she think that the 16,994 pensioners in her constituency will be miserable as a result of the actions in yesterday’s Budget?

[Pauline Latham]

I do not know how you have calculated that for my constituency, because I am not even sure you know where it is. We are looking after pensioners. They will not be losing what you are talking about. They are getting a bigger increase than ever from the triple lock, and we are increasing their allowances. There will possibly be a year when some people will have to pay slightly more tax, but not the majority. Most people will not be spending any more money, and they will certainly not be losing any more money next year compared with this year, so you might like to look a little more carefully at what we are doing.