John Hayes
Main Page: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)Department Debates - View all John Hayes's debates with the HM Treasury
Taxation of Low-income Families
John Hayes Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
I am grateful for your indulgence, Sir David, and apologise for not having been here at the beginning of the debate. I am proud to be associated with this study, and I have only two points to make. First, change is inevitable and constant, as Disraeli said, but not all change is for the better. In my lifetime, many things have changed for the better, but many have deteriorated, and perhaps the sharpest and most obvious deterioration has been the change in family life and the consequent alteration in communities. When I was brought up in a working-class community by working-class parents, that community was stable, law abiding and socially cohesive. It embedded in me strong values: to do the right thing, work hard, abide by the law, and care for other people.
If someone were to go to that council estate now, they would see a very different picture. They would see more lawlessness and more vandalism. They would see the parade of shops that was once there, which my mother used, long gone. Fundamentally and most starkly, they would see widespread family breakdown, and the wider effect of family breakdown is something that the Government need to recognise and use every lever at their disposal to do something about. It is no use politicians claiming that things will always and only get better, because they do not: society has changed for both good and ill simultaneously, and no Government of any party have dealt with this issue to the degree that they should have done.
We can use the tax system in exactly the way this report suggests, so my second point—mindful of your advice, Sir David, I will make only two—is that family, and particularly marriage, need to be supported in the tax system. The benefits system does so to some degree: as we have heard from various speakers, it recognises family responsibility. However, that is not matched by the tax system to the degree that it should be. I say to the Minister, who is my close friend and my right hon. Friend—which is quite a different matter—that he would stand proud among Treasury Ministers of this age and of all ages if he used the tax system to recognise family responsibility more effectively. With that brief contribution—some will say all too brief, Sir David, but I know you will not—I conclude my remarks.