Finance (No. 2) Bill (Fourth sitting)

Ruth George Excerpts

Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 11th January 2018 Public Bill Committees

We need to be able to assess the efficacy of the first-year tax credits in generally boosting water quality and efficiency and reducing carbon emissions against measures that could be introduced but have not been and those that this or previous Conservative Governments have cut. Many of us had hoped that the Office of Tax Simplification would be able to undertake just such a detailed analysis for us, but that has not yet happened for environmental measures. Therefore, I repeat our request for a proper review of the tax reliefs.

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

The total corporation tax take in the last year was £56 billion and capital allowances reduced that bill by £22.5 billion—almost half as much again of the total bill. Does my hon. Friend not agree that that makes it even more important that we review such a substantial area of reduction in corporation tax?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I thoroughly agree with my hon. Friend. I must admit that the UK is not alone in its general lack of consideration of the incidence of tax reliefs and their impact on forgone expenditure, but surely we need to be at the forefront of public administration and public policy globally. We should be considering the issue. As my colleagues mentioned, we are talking about not small amounts of money but very substantial amounts, which to all intents and purposes are forgone tax, although they are classified differently from expenditure within Government accounts. For that and many other reasons, I commend the amendment to the Committee.