I said that the Budget needed to be about priorities and that we need to look now at how to help people struggling on the lowest incomes and ensure that those with the broadest shoulders bear the greatest burden. In government, Labour took steps to ensure that its pension reliefs were fair to those at the bottom as well as those at the top. This Government have reversed that decision to limit the relief to 20%, and we have seen the result: the impact across the board is being unfairly borne by those at the bottom. When times are as tough as they are now, it cannot be right to subsidise the pension contributions of the top 2% of earners at more than double the rate for people on average incomes who pay the basic rate of tax. However, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats clearly believe that the time is right to prioritise those earning more than £150,000.
What we got in this year’s Budget, and in the very first clause of the Finance Bill, is the coalition’s unjustifiable and grossly unfair decision to reduce the top rate of income tax from 50p to 45p, a cut that benefits just 267,000 people earning more than £150,000, 13,000 of whom are lucky enough to earn more than £1 million. Indeed, those lucky few are receiving an average tax cut of a whopping £107,000 according to HMRC figures. Who wants to bung a millionaire indeed?
I have no doubt that at this juncture Liberal Democrat Members will want to trumpet the increase in the personal allowance—to pipe up and explain that they are not prioritising the richest in society over those who genuinely need support, but unfortunately for them the
facts state otherwise. Let us remind ourselves of the analysis of figures published by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies. It shows that taking into account all the changes to tax credits and benefits introduced since 2010, households in the UK will, on average, be a staggering £891, or £17 a week, worse off this financial year.