Finance (No. 4) Bill

Debate between Owen Smith and Graeme Morrice

Wednesday 18th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

No, I am not going to give way.

The Government are the ones who could decide today to put the rate back up to 50p. They have chosen to cut it from 50p to 45p. We are not going to indulge in any more of this procedural gibberish. The reality is that we are here to debate the substance of the issue, which is the values and the evidence that underpin the decision.

[Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has referred to the fact that at Prime Minister’s questions today the Prime Minister said that the 50p tax rate provided no additional income to the Treasury. However, can my hon. Friend confirm what the actual loss to the Treasury would be from reducing the rate to 45p?

[Owen Smith]

I would be absolutely delighted to confirm that, because we have got it in black and white, in the HMRC’s dodgy dossier, as I think of it these days. Page 39 of the HMRC paper says that the post-behavioural yield—that is, the amount of money realised—of the 50p rate for the one year in which it was in existence was £1.1 billion. The summary, on page 2, says the same thing. In answer to my hon. Friend’s supplementary point, the amount of money that would be forgone in forthcoming years, which is captured in table A2 on page 51, is £3 billion, rising to £4 billion over the spending period. That is the reality, there in black and white in the HMRC document. These are not uncertain numbers, like some of the other ones. I will now give way to the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis)—[Interruption]—who is looking off into the ether.

[Owen Smith]

I will answer the hon. Gentleman’s last point first, because I answered it on Monday, too. When we introduced the 50p rate, in the Budget for the year before it took effect—we first floated the notion in 2009, allowing a year for it to be implemented, as is good practice—the rationale was simple. We wanted the people with the broadest shoulders to pay the maximum amount, and to pay an amount that is fair and just. This Government have a different set of priorities.

[Graeme Morrice]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way again. On the basis of the confirmation from the official HMRC report that the loss is indeed in excess of £1 billion, does he think that the Prime Minister should be asked to come back to the House and correct the record accordingly?

[Owen Smith]

I do. It is absolutely extraordinary that the Prime Minister should have misled the House in the manner in which he did. However, it is in keeping with the misleading of the House that is writ large throughout the HMRC document, which has frankly come up with this £100 million loss—not flat, as the Prime Minister suggested—with the flimsiest of evidence and on the basis of economic modelling that I intend to take to pieces later on.