Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what plans he has to reduce tax for working people.

As the Government announced at Spring Statement 2022, the basic rate of Income Tax will be reduced from 20 per cent to 19 per cent in April 2024. This will be the first cut to the basic rate in 16 years, and is over a £5 billion tax cut for workers, savers, and pensioners.

The Government is committed to doing this in a responsible and sustainable way. The cut to the basic rate of Income Tax will require continued fiscal discipline and depend on the broader economy

The Government has raised the Personal Allowance (PA) by over 40 per cent in real terms in the last decade. A typical basic rate taxpayer will still be over £600 better off in 2025-26 than they would have been if the Government had not taken this action to increase the PA above inflation since 2010-11.

The Government is aligning the Primary Threshold and Lower Profits Limit – the point at which employees and the self-employed respectively start paying Class 1 and Class 4 National Insurance contributions– with the internationally high Income Tax Personal Allowance rising to £12,570 from July 2022. This means the amount that people will be able to earn tax free will increase by £2,690 and is a tax cut worth over £330 for a typical employee in the first year.