Equality

Lord Eatwell Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, the Government take extremely seriously the question of fairness, which is why we introduced for the first time a distributional analysis to show the effects of not only our Budget but also our spending review decisions. In the measures that we have announced so far, in what is a very difficult fiscal situation, there is a fairness premium of £7.2 billion. The Government are putting these issues centre stage. In relation to bankers’ pay, my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced today that the levy on banks will be brought forward, so that the banks will be taxed at a higher level than under the previous Government’s one-off spending plans. We will await further developments in relation to discussions ongoing with the banks.

[Lord Eatwell]

My Lords, in the noble Lord’s reference to his Government’s policy on this matter and to the Budget, was he not being a little misleading, as the equality analysis in the Budget included the measures introduced by Mr Darling in March? When the measures introduced by the coalition are taken alone, they do not contribute to greater equality.

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, we took some very difficult decisions about which of the previous Government’s measures we would continue with and which we would not. The principal measure of the previous Government that we did not continue with was the full national insurance tax—the jobs tax—which would have been a significant drag on the growth prospects of this economy. Of course it was right that we should take into account the distributional effect of the total package of measures that we put through as a Government this year in the Budget and in the spending review. That is just what we have done.