Finance Bill

While I do not want to go too far down that path, I agree that there may be difficulties for some pensioners, although one has to be careful not to aggregate all pensioners together. For example, almost 90 per cent. of pensioners over the age of 85 have a bank account, despite all the talk about the Department for Work and Pensions and the Post Office card account. However, one has to make special arrangements for vulnerable pensioners, and the Government have tried to do that. In terms of family poverty, we have had tax credits, and child benefit has gone up substantially, especially for the first child. The minimum wage has done a lot to address poverty and family poverty in particular. Above all, we have 2.5 million more jobs. The point that has not been made about new clause 14 is that the proposals would take effect from April 2008. They are not in this Finance Bill. That gives us a chance to pause for reflection and to consider the figures that have been mentioned. It is vital that we get more clarity from the Government on those. According to table A1 on page 208 of the Red Book, the drop from 22 to 20 per cent. in the basic rate of income tax will cost the Treasury £8 billion in 2008-09, the first year it is due to come in. However, the cost to the taxpayer of abolishing the starting rate of 10p in the £1 in tax year 2008-09 will be £7.3 billion. I am not an accountant, but my reckoning is that every hon. Member will benefit from that. We are all higher-rate taxpayers, and they are much less than 10 per cent. of the working population in this country. We can all declare an interest in the 10, 20 and 22 per cent. rate, but intuitively the change says to me that there is a shift in the wrong direction, which is why I want more figures. Depending on those figures, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) may have a point about transitional relief, but it is difficult for him—he has not suggested otherwise—and the rest of us to know about transitional relief until we know what we are transitioning from. We have not yet got clarity on the figures. I happen to think that we will get those figures well before next April, which is when the transition is due to take place, and we can have a look at them then. For that reason, I would not support my right hon. Friend were he to press the new clause to a vote, although I understand the spirit of it. I am confident—perhaps naively—that we will get the figures. I urge the Government to produce more figures, and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary will do so. Depending on those, the Government might need to reconsider the matter. That is my initial reaction to the debate in the press, the Chamber and Parliament on the effect of abolishing the starting rate and the corresponding cut in the basic rate of income tax. It may well be that when the Government have had another look at the issue and we have fuller figures, those of us—I count myself as one of them—who are loyal Back-Bench MPs by and large, but who are uneasy about the direction of the change, may have our fears stilled. At the moment, however, without that information, we still have those fears.