Opposition Day: Tax

Proposed by Sir Mel Stride

I beg to move, That this House notes that the Government was elected on the basis of a manifesto commitment not to increase taxes on working people and not to increase National Insurance or the basic, higher, or additional rates of Income Tax, or VAT; accordingly regrets the decision to raise employ… I beg to move, That this House notes that the Government was elected on the basis of a manifesto commitment not to increase taxes on working people and not to increase National Insurance or the basic, higher, or additional rates of Income Tax, or VAT; accordingly regrets the decision to raise employers’ National Insurance contributions in the Autumn Budget 2024; further regrets the proposed changes to Agricultural Property Relief and the burden on taxpayers from increases in Council Tax, which is forecast to increase at its highest rate in 20 years; calls on the Government to reaffirm the statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Autumn Budget 2024 that, from 2028–29, personal tax thresholds will be uprated in line with inflation once again; regrets that the Government plans to bring those whose only income is the State Pension into paying Income Tax this Parliament; and urges the Government not to introduce new taxes on the value of assets owned such as savings, homes and pensions, which would drive wealth creators away from the UK. This is the Government of broken promises. The Labour party said during the general election campaign that it would do nothing on taxation, and yet it came straight into government and placed £25 billion-worth of taxation on businesses up and down our country. We know the consequences of that: it killed growth nearly stone dead, and it has cost around £3,500 pounds by way of lower wages alone to the average working family. It is a clear breach of the Labour party’s manifesto. Members need not take my word for it—they can take Paul Johnson’s, when he was the head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. He has also been on the airwaves recently describing the move as not just a breach of the Labour party manifesto, but a “blatant” breach. We had the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—then the shadow Secretary of State—out reassuring farmers, looking Tom Bradshaw, the president of the National Farmers Union, in the eye and telling him that at least when it came to inheritance tax, farmers had nothing to fear from a future Labour Government. How wrong they were! Then there was the winter fuel payment debacle. Labour reassured pensioners up and down the country that it would not be means-testing the winter fuel payment. Before somebody jumps up and says, “Well, it only excluded millionaires,” it did not—some 80% of pensioners living below the poverty line were denied those payments and had to go through a long and cruel winter. The U-turn, when it finally came, will come as little comfort to pensioners who are now about to be dragged into income tax for the first time as a result of the Labour party’s policies. In opposition, the Labour party said it would freeze council tax, and yet we have seen in the latest spending review a £7 billion increase in council tax levied across this Parliament. According to the IFS, it is the largest increase in council tax in a generation—and that from the party that said it would not be putting up taxes on working people. Does it not think that working people pay council tax?

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