Clause 1

Debate between Luke Evans and Sammy Wilson

Monday 12th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson]

Tonight’s debate is not just an opportunity for the Opposition to have a go at the Government. Many people who are getting cynical about politics will say, “Well, of course you would expect them to have a go about taxation and the Government’s behaviour on that issue.” However, this debate goes far beyond that, because the implications of what we are discussing tonight are very serious.

First, there are the macroeconomic impacts of the decision not to make work pay, because of higher taxation. The Government have hung a lot of their predictions of economic success on obtaining economic growth, but one thing we will not do is tax our way to growth. This will be an anti-growth measure, which will have implications not just for this year but future years and future Budgets. Secondly, it will have personal consequences for many people facing the current cost of living crisis and finding it difficult to stretch their income to meet their needs.

Lastly, the decision will have an impact on people’s confidence in the democratic system. The Government will get this Bill through tonight. They will get it through because they have a massive majority, and they have a massive majority because they made massive promises. They promised that people would not face income tax increases, and I have no doubt that that influenced how many working people voted. However, the Minister has accepted tonight that by the end of this period, £28 billion will have been raised. One reason I support new clauses 3, 13 and 14 is that they at least give people an opportunity to realise what the Government are doing to them, and they show that politicians in this House want there to be honesty with the people. If there was not honesty when the manifesto was written and presented, let us ensure that there is honesty when the implications of the decisions that this Government are making become clear to the citizens of this country. These are confidence measures.

Let us just remind ourselves of what the Government promised—we have been around this a number of times tonight. They promised that they would not increase taxes on working people. They then went on to define “working people” as people who go to work every day, yet we know that by freezing the thresholds, people who go to work every day and are therefore subject to income tax being charged on the money they earn will pay more. Working people know that a promise to them has been broken.

[Dr Luke Evans]

I think the Chancellor knows that, given her statement at the first Budget that changing the thresholds would be a tax on working people.

[Sammy Wilson]

Of course she does. That is one reason why I believe that the new clauses are important—they recognise the need for people to be made aware of the consequences, and the impact on them, of decisions that are being made in this House by a majority Government who got there by making promises that are not being kept.

What is that impact? The Minister has already told us: £23 billion more tax will be paid. He justifies that by saying—I think he mentioned this twice—that the Government have sought to be fair, and to place the burden on those with the broadest shoulders. When 750,000 people who are currently earning £12,500 per year are dragged into the tax system, that does not strike me as fair. It strikes me as placing a burden on people who go out to work every day, do not earn a great deal of money or have a great reward for it, and now find themselves having to pay tax when they never thought they would have to.

As I said in an earlier intervention, people might be willing to pay taxes if they thought it would lead to things that would improve their lives. We had that promise at the first Budget—that the Government were putting up taxes by £40 billion, or whatever it was at that stage, to improve public services. Have public services improved? No, they have not. Has the money been spent on public services? No, it has not. Yes, wage increases have been given, but as the OBR has said, there have been no productivity increases as a result of the extra money that has been spent. If taxpayers thought they were going to get some benefit from these changes, they might have been willing to accept them, but of course, they are not getting that benefit.

What are we getting? We are getting wasteful expenditure. As has already been mentioned, £5 billion will be spent on taking money from those who go out to work and paying it to those who do not go out to work. That is not fair, and it does not make any economic sense, either. Then, of course, there is all the other wasteful expenditure that the Government have engaged in, such as the Chagos deal. We had the Chagos islands—we had our bases there and so on. We are now going to pay somewhere between £38 billion and £47 billion to the Government of Mauritius to give the islands back and then lease them back again. You can understand why people ask, “Is that what I want my taxes to be spent on?” Of course it is not.

The Government estimate that their ID cards system will cost £1.8 billion, while the London School of Economics says that the cost could be £10.7 billion. The Government say that it is to stop illegal immigration, when we know full well that it would not matter if we had six ID cards—those who come into this country illegally will seek to work illegally, and there are other means of checking up on them anyway. There are also the new bureaucracies that the Government have set up. One of their first actions was to set up a huge bureaucracy, Great British Energy, at a cost of £9 billion. Again, what benefit will we get from that? The Government have said that it will deliver their net zero policies, but is it necessary to have a bureaucracy of that nature? I know that many Members do not agree with me on this issue, but we are spending billions of pounds on restructuring our economy to meet net zero targets when many other countries are saying, “We are not prepared to damage our economy in that way.”

Given the proposals we are debating tonight, the new clauses I have spoken to are not all that demanding. All they say is, “Let’s have some transparency about what all this means to the people who are having to pay the money.” That is not too much to ask. I hope that people will consider that when they cast their vote tonight.

The one thing I say in conclusion is that we seem to have a Government who, as their first choice, will spend taxpayers’ money, rather than looking at how the money they already take from taxpayers can be used more effectively.

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Luke Evans and Sammy Wilson

Committee of the whole House
Monday 20th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson]

Of course there are many who take a totally different point of view and whose wishes are not reflected in this Bill. The amendments that have been tabled to seek to remedy that situation are being ignored and opposed by the Government.

The second issue is the economy. On a regular basis, we hear how difficult the fiscal position is for this country—black holes we have to fill by taking money off pensioners, reducing benefits, cutting here and cutting there, and taxing people to the hilt. Yet when amendments are tabled that simply request transparency and the opportunity to look at the expenditure involved in this treaty, we hear no support from the Government. Either we are concerned about the fiscal position of this country or we are not. I would suggest that £35 billion—and rising—is a significant figure that we should be looking at.

[Dr Luke Evans]

The right hon. Member is making a powerful point. Is not part of the problem that we do not even know which budget the money is coming out of? That is the kind of simple question that the man or woman on the street would expect us to be able answer.

[Sammy Wilson]

We may not know which budget it is coming from, but we know whose pockets it is coming from: the pockets of taxpayers. To a certain extent it does not really matter, because all our constituents will pay for this deal. The Minister said that the Chagos islands were priceless, yet we are giving them away and giving away taxpayers’ money for them—and we do not even know how much we will be giving in the long run. I would have thought that some Government Members have concerns, if not about human rights then about the financial implications of the deal.

Especially at this time, national security is an important issue for every Member of the House, yet amendments that seek to ensure that there is scrutiny over what happens to these islands, who has influence in them and whether the treaty that has been entered into guarantees that our security will not be jeopardised are being refused. The Government are not even attacking the amendments or explaining their opposition.