Finance Bill

I understand why the new clause was tabled and I have some sympathy with the predicament that it raises. I should say in passing that the new clause may have a technical defect. I lived with my sister for 15 years, then I turned 18 and went to university. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) has been in such a position, but my point is that there are young people who live together as siblings for more than 10 years. However, that is not why I am speaking against my right hon. Friend's new clause. Last year, about 6 per cent. of estates—about 34,000 of them—paid inheritance tax. This year, because of the changes and the doubling up of husbands and wives and civil partners, it is predicted that about 4 per cent. of estates, or about 23,000 of them, will pay the tax. However, what is important is not just the absolute numbers but the principle of the issue. We need to start with how we got to this position. One of my degrees is in sociology, and that colours how I approach this issue. In most societies, inheritance sprang up to bolster the family and pass property to children—think of peasants and the issues in different European countries about whether there is primogeniture and so on. Our inheritance tax is part of a historical follow-through of that in respect of fostering family life. That is why there are exemptions between husbands and wives and now, quite properly—as highlighted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead—between civil partners. That is a welcome step forward, as it is to do with a relationship that, historically, most societies sought to bolster to a greater or lesser extent because of the involvement of children. Some civil partners have children and some do not; that takes us back to the debate on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which we will not go into here. However, a lot of that debate revolved around the provision of a social unit that had adequate means of providing a stable environment for the children. That was particularly significant historically—a man might have been killed in the war and left a widow with young children, for example. For me, that is the historical background and how we have got where we are.