Income Tax (Charge)

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con) [V]]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Yesterday’s Budget had to support people and businesses through this moment of crisis, begin to fix the public finances and build our future economy. The Government’s support for employees and businesses has been nothing short of monumental—we all know that. It has saved millions of people from losing their jobs and prevented hundreds of thousands of businesses from going bust—businesses that are now up and running and able to repay that support as they drive our economic recovery.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions described just some of the myriad support that her Department continues to provide to people in need of additional support. In my constituency, I have seen the kickstart scheme being adopted by local employers, who are keen to take advantage of the support for new employment for young people. I have to refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, because my former business has also joined the kickstart programme. It has done so because kickstart is a great programme that works for business and for young people at risk of long-term unemployment alike. I have visited my local jobcentre in Fakenham and seen the plans to double the number of job coaches across the country, in order to get people who have lost their job back to work as soon as possible. I welcome the Chancellor’s decision to continue his massive support for employment, the self-employed and business right through to September, some months after we should be fully out of lockdown and all our businesses should be back up and running. This Chancellor is focused on jobs above all else and he is absolutely right to take that approach.

However, the immediate recovery is only the first challenge. The Chancellor also needs to lay the ground for our fiscal recovery and the structure of our future prosperity. The British people understand and accept that the massive payments from the Treasury over the last year have to be paid back. The Chancellor acknowledged that that will be a long task, for many Budgets, but it is right that he should be frank with us about the scale of the challenge and where we have to start. Nobody normal likes tax rises, but we get it. Our incomes have been supported by tax money over the last year, so a gradual clawback via the freezing of income tax thresholds is a fair way to start the job; it is a sensible, gradual approach, where the better-off pay more. Likewise, businesses accept that it is fair to start to repay the huge support they have received. The increase in corporation tax on profits of larger companies starts in two years’ time, after a huge boost to investment through the £25 billion super deduction tax cut. It makes sense.

This is a Budget for recovery and growth. The former Labour Member for Birkenhead, now Lord Field, said yesterday

“To be successful in politics, you have to ride two political horses simultaneously. Rishi has done a budget for the hour and made the possibility of long-term prosperity...Best budget in my 42 years in politics.”

He was not wrong.