Finance Bill

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to be called to speak in this critical debate. I, too, support this Finance Bill, because it is important and relates to taxation, which underpins the foundations of democracy and good government. Due to the time constraints, I will discuss only two key points that the electorate expect the Government to deliver on for the people of this country, and the first is fairness.

Opposition Members make much of our record and talk about tax avoidance, but they rarely did anything in their 13 years in government. I am proud to be a member of a party that considers such values paramount. We are tackling the abuses that the public rightly find disgusting. Small businesses cannot afford to wriggle through the loopholes that Opposition Members built into the legislation when they were in government. It has been left to a Conservative Government to end permanent non-dom status for the first time. We have seen the extraordinary spectacle of Opposition Members being on the side of the richest non-doms, and let it not be forgotten that Labour allowed the Mayfair loophole to persist, with hedge- fund billionaires paying just 10% tax on their earnings. They were happy to sit back and let tax avoiders shirk their responsibilities to pay for our NHS and other public services. Instead, a Conservative Government have tackled the issue of raising the revenue that we need, and which Opposition Members regularly call for, to fund our schools, hospitals and other public services.

I welcome the Bill because it also deals with the redistributive nature of taxation. We are building, and will continue to build, a redistributive tax system that is fairest to those on low incomes, and I am proud to say that the richest 1% are set to pay 27% of all income tax and that the richest 5% will pay 38%. It is right that we ask the richest to pay more tax. All Members ought to be familiar with the Laffer curve. It is not a dry economic theory; it is a fact that results in more money going into the Exchequer’s coffers to pay for schools and hospitals. It is ironic that we hear so much from Opposition Members about inequality when this Government have delivered the lowest levels of income inequality for 30 years.

Competence is the other element that people look for in a Government, and I want to draw Members’ attention to a city that is close to Redditch. Birmingham is our nation’s great second city and close to the hearts of Redditch residents, many of whom work there, play there or used to live there, and we can see there the record of the Labour party in government. It is a city in which a bin strike has been ongoing for months, with no sign of resolution. Huge, stinking piles of rotting rubbish are an eyesore on the streets, rats roam unhindered through the stench, and cockroaches and other pests scuttle all over the pavement. What a fate to inflict on the poor residents of Birmingham, who are trying to go about their daily lives and run their businesses. I never see a Labour Member for Birmingham, our great second city, speaking about this issue. If the Labour party cannot run a bin service, the public rightly question how it can possibly run a country.

The electorate deserve an approach to running the economy that delivers opportunity by growing businesses and backing jobs. We understand that by lowering taxation on small businesses we can encourage more entrepreneurs to take the giant risks to their livelihood that starting a business involves—I know all about those risks having lived through that cycle myself.

We are supporting the small businesses that make up 99.3% of all private sector businesses, many of which are in Redditch and doing extremely well. My constituents in Redditch will welcome these measures, which are fair to businesses and fair to the lowest paid, and will raise more taxation to fund public services in Redditch and the rest of the country. I look forward to voting in favour of the Bill tonight.