Income Tax

Lord Newby Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wood of Anfield]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the level of income tax receipts so far this financial year.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, the Office for National Statistics’ latest estimate for income tax and capital gains tax for the period April to September 2014 is £71.5 billion.

[Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that precise answer. As today’s alarming ONS figures confirm, this Government are presiding over a recovery in which wages, far from recovering, have continued to deteriorate. As a result, the public finances are getting worse and social security spending targets are being missed by over £15 billion. The deficit continues to rise. Will the Minister tell us why this is the case, and say whether he agrees that in the light of this, the Prime Minister’s promise in October of further unfunded tax cuts lies somewhere between heroic and reckless?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I remind the noble Lord, and the House, that growth in the UK is the highest among the G7 countries; that unemployment has fallen by 324,000 in the past year; and that the other piece of news today, which he omitted to mention, is that the gender pay gap has fallen to an all-time low.

[Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)]

Does my noble friend not agree that the most important point is that 3 million people at the bottom of the earnings pile, including 1.8 million women, have been taken out of income tax completely? At the same time, the Revenue’s take has increased by some £5.1 billion over the past year. Is that not a classic example of a stronger economy and a fairer society?

[Lord Newby]

It is, my Lords.

[Baroness Nye (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister say whether the Government are planning to raise VAT again to fill the hole in the tax receipts?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the Government have absolutely no plans to increase VAT.

[Lord Lawson of Blaby (Con)]

My Lords, is it not a bit cheeky for the noble Lord, who is the eminence grise of the party opposite, to talk about recklessness, when his party’s policy is to increase the deficit even more?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, it is not always that I agree with my noble friend—but in this case I do.

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, how will the deficit be reduced if wages continue to fall, as they have done for 71 out of 74 months, and if, as has happened for virtually the whole of this Administration, wages fall in real terms, so that less tax is paid?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, wages have fallen, but they have started rising in real terms. The OBR and every other forecaster that has made projections of real wages for the next few years in the British economy are firmly forecasting consistent real-wage growth.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend tell us what the effect of cutting the top rate of tax from 50p to 45p was? Did revenues go up or did they go down? What was the effect of putting up the capital gains tax rate? Did revenues go up or did they go down?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the impact of the reduction in the 50p tax rate was about £100 million, when all the secondary effects were taken into account. In respect of capital gains tax, I will need to write to the noble Lord.

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

Did the Minister see the research recently which said that paying a living wage encouraged people to be more productive and raised the level of income tax? Why do the Government not just do it?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, paying the living wage is something that the Government support but, as we have discussed before in your Lordships’ House, there is a balance between rising wages and unemployment. That is the basis on which the minimum wage is set. I gave an example from the Dispatch Box the last time we discussed this: having spoken to people working in the textile industry in Leicester, they demonstrated to me that a big increase in the wage that they were paid would mean that fewer of them would be earning it, because they would be out of the job.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury (LD)]

My Lords, is it not the case that income tax should be a good deal higher, particularly if those in the higher ranges of income paid their full amount of tax? What are we doing to tighten the receipt of income tax from all who should pay it?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the amount of income tax paid by the top 1% is now 28% of the total income tax revenues, which is the highest proportion it has ever been. That is because this Government have put substantially more money into fighting tax avoidance and evasion—far, far more—than the previous Administration.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

My Lords, we have heard various Ministers refer to government employees in terms of paying the living wage. It appears to be a sort of “This ministry does, this ministry doesn’t” situation. Why does not the whole of government do that, particularly given that some of the people who work in those government departments live in London, where the cost of living is very high?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the Government support the principle of paying the minimum wage. A number of government departments are already doing it and others are considering introducing it.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, what progress are the Government making on multinational corporate taxation to ensure that UK-domiciled companies are not discriminated against in terms of international and UK markets?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, as noble Lords will be aware, at the G20 last year the Prime Minister had this issue at the top of the agenda, since when the OECD has produced a whole raft of measures aimed at ensuring that companies pay their fair share of tax. Noble Lords will have seen the end of what was called the “double Irish” tax avoidance scheme in Ireland, and there are currently European Commission probes against tax avoidance in the Netherlands and Luxembourg. There has been a real tightening-up in this area, which was reinforced at the recent G20 summit.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister reflect on what he has just said? If I heard him right, he said that most government departments were paying the minimum wage and that some are considering introducing it. Was that a slip of the tongue? Surely, no government department is paying less than the minimum wage. Did he mix up the minimum wage and the living wage?

[Lord Newby]

I am not sure, my Lords, but what I meant to say was that while all government departments obviously pay the minimum wage, a number are paying the living wage and we are encouraging more to do that.