Oral Answers to Questions

Karen Lumley Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My own view is that the tax proposal that I have championed for many years—that everyone who earns in this country should earn the first £10,000 entirely free of income tax—is one of the most radical tax policies to have been promoted in British politics for many, many years and would make a dramatic difference for people on middle and low incomes, who were abandoned by the Labour party and its punitive approach to tax. As I have said, from next month, with the steps that we have already announced, we will already be taking more than 1 million people on low pay out of paying any income tax whatever.

[Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)]

T9. In 2010-11 the average public spending purse per person in Wales was £9,947, and for the west midlands it was only £8,679. In the light of the fact that Welsh MPs can vote on matters that affect my constituents, how can I justify that discrepancy to the people of Redditch?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I know that this is a sensitive issue, but I do not think that at a time like this, when we are seeking to fill the black hole in the public finances, reopening the mind-numbingly complex issue of the Barnett formula should be our No. 1 priority. That does not mean that we cannot make progress on how fiscal devolution could proceed in the United Kingdom, which is why the Silk commission has been established to look, for instance, at the new fiscal powers that could possibly be devolved to Wales in the future.