Pre-Budget Report

I will make a little progress, if my hon. Friend will allow me. The Government tried to distract attention from that tax raid on the incomes and jobs of middle Britain with their top-rate tax changes. I am sure that everybody remembers what the Prime Minister said to the Treasury Committee last year when he was trying to justify the abolition of the 10p rate:"““I believe that over time very few people will want to change this two rate…system of income tax.””" It turns out that one of those very few people was the Prime Minister himself, a year later. He has actually created five rates of income tax. If we include the adverse changes to personal allowances and national insurance, there are now three new higher bands of income tax—46.5 per cent., 52.8 per cent., and a new top rate of 59.8 per cent. That is not a simplification of the tax system.