Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s view of my career trajectory. I will not ask him about his—perhaps we can agree about it afterwards. I learned some important lessons from the Home Affairs Committee report I worked on, including on the priority we give in tackling drugs to education and treatment. Those are the two key arms of what needs to be done. However, I do not believe we should be legalising drugs that are currently illegal. On current legal highs and problems relating to substances such as khat, which was mentioned in a previous question, we need to look carefully at the evidence on what will work best.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

Q11. In Solihull, more than 80,000 people have benefited from our policy of raising the threshold at which people start to pay tax. This morning, the Institute for Fiscal Studies confirmed that that policy is right, and that those who have the broadest shoulders are bearing the greatest burden of tax. In the light of that, will the Government commit to raising the threshold at which people pay tax to £10,000 in the Budget?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question—she is absolutely right about raising the threshold before which people start to pay tax. It means that the tax bill for someone on the minimum wage working full time has been cut by one half. That is a huge change to help people who work hard and want to do the right thing. This Government are rewarding them. She mentions the IFS green budget, which came out this morning. I have not had that much time to study it, but one thing stood out. On fairness, it states:

“The whole set of tax and benefit changes introduced between the start of 2010 and 2015–16 will hit the richest households hardest.”

This Government are fair, and we are helping the hardest working.