UK Parliament / Open data

Finance Bill

Proceeding contribution from Charlie Elphicke (Conservative) in the House of Commons on Monday, 2 July 2012. It occurred during Debate on bills on Finance Bill.

That is my understanding, yes. Pensioners will not lose out, there will be no cash losers and no pensioners will be worse off in cash terms, As the hon. Gentleman well knows, we can have the argument about future rates of inflation and future rates of RPI, but one must also take into account the other side of the equation, as pensions and benefits for elderly people will rise in the same way and at the same time. Overall, we are not talking about a great difference; we are certainly looking after the least well-off of the elderly, and we have done so very well indeed. That is an important achievement of this Government. Pensioners have been better off under the Government and have been shielded from the austerity measures.

Let us look across the piece at what the Government have done. We have done the right thing to reduce taxation at the top level, which was meant to be temporary, to encourage investment in our economy and to encourage entrepreneurs. The Government need to take further action to deal with people who abuse personal service companies and other tax wheezes and to ensure that we have stronger measures against avoidance by individuals. We have seen enough of it in the newspapers, so I shall not go into individual cases because, as we know, that ends up in a spat about whether one likes Take That or late-night comedy shows. Nevertheless, it is right that we should ensure that individuals cannot play the system and that the law should be changed. It is all very well for the Labour party to take the moral high ground on the issue of tax allowances, but Labour was asleep at the wheel for about a decade and failed to deal with tax avoidance in the individual and corporate spheres. That was completely wrong.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
547 c659 
Session
2012-13
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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