Finance (No. 2) Bill

We have established the Office of Tax Simplification and put in place a large number of its recom...

My hon. Friend talks about the policies that are being put in place by the Government to help bus...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Very often, the debate in this House is about the impact on i...

I welcome the increase in the bank levy. Does the Minister agree that it is extremely difficult f...

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Indeed, that is why the previous Chancellor of the Excheq...

The Chancellor indicated to the Treasury Committee yesterday that he was minded to make the bank ...

We believe that the bank levy and the additional contribution from the banking sector are not jus...

My hon. Friend is being generous in giving way. I welcome the diverted profits tax and I think th...

My hon. Friend again makes a very good point. This Government have led the way in the establishme...

My hon. Friend is talking about fairness in the tax system, which we all want. Will he confirm th...

My hon. Friend makes another excellent point. This year, the proportion of income tax paid by the...

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case on the work that the Government have done to tackle tax ...

My hon. Friend—given his background, he is an expert in tax matters—has been a consistently stron...

rose—

I will give way again, because I know that the hon. Gentleman does not have long left in this Hou...

I thank the hon. Gentleman for being so generous with his time. The Chancellor has indicated that...

Given this Government’s record on the measures introduced in Finance Act after Finance Act, the s...

rose—

I will give way one last time.

According to the Financial Times this morning, the Bill will add significantly to the complexity ...

The hon. Gentleman may be interested to hear, or he may already be aware, that the Office of Tax ...

I do not wish to revisit old debates about simplification, but does my hon. Friend have a view ab...

My hon. Friend does not want to revisit old debates, but I tempted to give a response that I susp...

rose—

I give way to another Member who, like my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), ...

My hon. Friend is being extremely generous in giving way. May I turn to the provisions on oil tax...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I believe that oil revenues are something like a 10th of what...

Will the Financial Secretary give way?

I will give way one last time, but I am conscious that many Members will want to speak.

I thank the Financial Secretary. I am sure that he would accept, having looked at the business ca...

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Particularly in the north-east of England, a number of busines...

It is a strange moment in the life of this five-year Parliament to be here debating the coalition...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I will; perhaps the Minister can say how we will compress that process into six hours.

I share the hon. Gentleman’s sense of loss that there is not the usual Committee stage upstairs t...

I do accept that, and it is good that we have had discussions through the usual channels, treatin...

Is it a Labour party manifesto commitment to have an early Budget in the last year of a Labour Go...

The hon. Gentleman must wait for our manifesto in w which we shall reveal all those details.

Is my hon. Friend as concerned as I am that there is so little distributional analysis in the Fin...

My hon. Friend’s point about distributional analysis is a good one. We know that those on lower a...

My hon. Friend will know that the number of people earning more than £20,000 has fallen by 800,00...

As ever, my hon. Friend manages to sum up the Government’s record in a pithy and simple intervent...

I was at a Budget briefing in Dunfermline given by a local accountancy firm, Thomson Cooper, on F...

It is in the very first clause of the Bill: it seems that the Government’s proudest achievement i...

rose—

Well, maybe that is the logic of the Liberal Democrats in supporting these particular measures. I...

Will the hon. Gentleman explain why the Government he was a part of put up 100 taxes in 13 years,...

That sounds as though the hon. Gentleman was in favour of the 50p rate and regrets that it was no...

My hon. Friend will know the excellent work of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers...

The retail sector is edging towards greater and greater insecurity, as companies feel that the on...

Following on from the previous intervention, in Scotland we are seeing an abuse of apprenticeship...

My hon. Friend should bear that in mind when we hear Ministers trumpeting their apprenticeship nu...

Will the hon. Gentleman explain how his tuition fees policy will be paid for, given that his part...

We are delighted that the Government took a shine to our proposals for pension tax relief changes...

I mentioned that low productivity was driving down wages. Is not the point of tuition fees policy...

My hon. Friend knows that the change from £9,000 to £6,000 would make an appreciable difference. ...

Will the hon. Gentleman clarify his statement about the Government not realising how many people ...

The arrangements for the rate of payback were set out in the policy documents we published, but t...

rose—

I want to make some progress—I have several pages still to get through and I want other Members t...

My hon. Friend makes an important case about the bedroom tax. The average cost of the bedroom tax...

This is always the dilemma. Do Government Members not understand—is it just a question of ignoran...

Does my hon. Friend agree that, given that such an iniquitous tax raises so little money for the ...

Many studies suggest that it costs more than has been raised. Of course, the Government knew how ...

rose—

My hon. Friend feels strongly about this, so I will give way one more time.

I do feel strongly about it. I can cite, with his approval, the case of Mr Gunning from my consti...

That is interesting. This sort of postcode lottery has afflicted many people, so my hon. Friend m...

For someone who did not feel that we had been given enough time today, the hon. Member for Nottin...

There is significant concern, indeed alarm, out there among some of the tax professionals and acc...

As I said a moment ago, I do share some of that concern. The new diverted profits tax is quite co...

Let me begin by expressing my disappointment that there is to be no Public Bill Committee. I have...

I always enjoy listening to the hon. Gentleman’s speeches, but he ought to note that the Budget i...

I welcome any money that goes towards mental health, and I think anybody suffering from a mental ...

The hon. Gentleman is making a passionate and powerful speech highlighting why it is such a trave...

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind comments, and I have to say that over the years that we h...

The dark side.

Yes; I thank the hon. Gentleman for that, and admire his cheek in trying to get me into trouble. ...

The hon. Gentleman must accept that five years ago the personal allowance was just over £5,500, a...

I would welcome it had VAT not been hiked up from 17.5% to 20%, which has affected many people an...

I want to make some brief comments on a number of issues that have come up in the debate so far: ...

It is a great pleasure and privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr Love), ...

They do pay more.

They need to pay lots more, not a bit more. Of course some of the very rich are paying more, but ...

rose—

I will not give way to the rover from Dover, thank you very much. He is known as the Dover soul. ...

rose—

I will finally give way to the hon. Gentleman.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for being so generous in giving way to the rover from Dover. I gently ...

Order. Believe it or not, that discussion is outside the scope of the Budget resolutions. But giv...

Clearly, I accept the ruling on the rover from Dover. I was simply making the point that, in our ...

Order. Mr Davies, you are way out of scope now, so we will go to the concluding remarks of this d...

I have only a short time in which to speak, so let me start by saying that we have heard some ver...

It is a great pleasure to close this debate on Second Reading. I would like to thank everyone who...