Michael Connarty
Main Page: Michael Connarty (Labour - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)Department Debates - View all Michael Connarty's debates with the HM Treasury
(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Danny Alexander
The idea behind the starter homes scheme is precisely to offer homes at a discount to young people who want to get on the housing ladder. I would have thought that was an objective that everyone in the House would welcome. If the hon. Lady wants to look at social rented housing, in this Parliament—and continuing in the next Parliament—we have the highest annual rate of social house building than under the previous Government or for the past 20 years. During Labour’s 13 years in office, the number of social homes fell by 421,000; we have increased it by over 300,000.
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
10. What recent discussions he has had with the Finance Secretary of the Scottish Government on devolution of taxes.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
I have had frequent and largely constructive discussions with the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth, including on the matter of devolution of taxes, as have my ministerial colleagues. The Scottish Minister recently met the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We have made huge progress in the area of tax devolution.
Michael Connarty
From reading the text of the Smith agreement, it seems to me that we have handed over income tax in particular to the Scottish Government, whereby allowances and bands can be varied. In fact, we have created the possibility of an independent tax system, apart from hanging on to the 20p tax as a kind of fulcrum around which it must work. Has the Treasury looked at the impact on the UK if there were an entirely independent tax system in the north of the United Kingdom?
Danny Alexander
Yes, we have. The hon. Gentleman is right. The Smith commission—rightly, I believe—devolves power over rates and bands in the income tax system. It does not devolve control of the tax base or the personal allowance. One of the bits of work that remains to be done is to ensure that we have a fiscal framework in place around that which means that the fact of devolution does not offer a financial advantage in and of itself either to Scotland or to the rest of the United Kingdom. I have had constructive discussions with John Swinney on that point and on many others. It is, of course, a matter for the Scottish Government to make sure that they have competent administrative machinery in place, which they will need next month when the process of the first wave of income tax devolution starts.