Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

As usual we are pressed for time, but I cannot allow excessively long early questions and answers to deny Members who have been waiting patiently, so we will now hear, I hope, from Mr Philip Hollobone.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

17. What the basic rate personal tax allowance was in May 2010; what that rate would have been in May 2015 if indexed to inflation; and what that rate will be in May 2015.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

The tax-free personal allowance was £6,475 in May 2010. It would have risen to just £7,485 by May 2015 through inflation, but the Government announced at autumn statement 2014 that the personal allowance would be increased to £10,600 from April 2015, and this is being legislated for in the Finance Bill 2015.

[Mr Hollobone]

By next May how many people does my hon. Friend estimate will have been taken out of paying income tax altogether in (a) Kettering, (b) Northamptonshire, and (c) the country as a whole?

[Mr Gauke]

By April this year the Government’s measures, including increases in the personal allowance for those born after 5 April 1948, are estimated to have taken about 3.4 million individuals out of the income tax system altogether. Some 248,000 of these individuals live in the east midlands region, which of course includes the constituency of Kettering in Northamptonshire.