Finance Bill

Debate between Lord Beamish and Toby Perkins

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins]

If I had had any idea that my hon. Friend so desperately wanted to intervene I would have given way earlier, but I am pleased to have been able to make her dream come true. The strong point that she makes, and on which Members should reflect, is precisely why my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) suggests that we assess the impact of the VAT increase.

I am not trying to get into a class war thing, but one reason why the Chancellor has got things so wrong and why so many of his policies seem so out of kilter is that he has no concept of what people can actually buy with a half-decent salary. That is one reason why, at the drop of a hat, he introduced the changes to child benefit. As someone who was loaded the day he was born, he has no idea of the difference between a salary of £50,000 a year, £20,000 a year or £12,000 a year; he just knows that they are a lot less than he has, and that people on £50,000 seem to earn more than the average so they are probably okay.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Has my hon. Friend noticed that the same applies to the majority of the Cabinet? I understand that among both its Conservative and Liberal Democrat members there are some 20 millionaires, so they say that we are all in it together, but they are clearly not.

[Toby Perkins]

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. No one is suggesting that because someone is wealthy they do not have a right to go into politics, just as we would never keep someone out of politics because they were poor—[Interruption.] Well, we would never do so! The central point, however, is that when the policies that the Government pursue seem so directly to hit the most deprived people, to attack pensioners and, particularly, to attack women as they have on so many different occasions, people will understandably look at the background of the people making those decisions. When people hear them in opposition say that they recognise that VAT is a regressive tax, but see them go into government and try to claim something different, they will understandably question their credibility.

VAT hits the poor, the workless and pensioners. Are those really the people the Chancellor wants in his sights?