Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Jonathan Edwards

Thursday 18th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Fiona O'Donnell]

I am sure that Members on both sides of the House are seeing that in their constituencies. I hope that Government Members will visit food banks in their communities to understand the causes of food insecurity. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North said, it is about the choices the Government are making and their priorities. Earlier we heard the most uncomfortable and distorted logic: when the economy was growing, unemployment was falling, we were investing in health and helping young people into employment, the Labour Government should have taken more money from the rich through a 50p tax rate, just for the sake of it; but when the economy is flat-lining, unemployment has just risen again, poverty and the gap between rich and poor are increasing, it is the right time for this Government to give a tax break to people earning over £150,000. I cannot follow that logic.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has estimated that almost 2.5 million families on low incomes will pay £130 more in council tax this year, adding further to the squeeze that working families are suffering. This Government have made their choice, and I think that, as they drive towards the next general election, if they glance in the rear-view mirror, two hazards will make them fail the electoral test. The first is their decision to scrap the 50p rate of tax. The second is their choice to introduce a bedroom tax at the same time. There is a family in Wallyford in my constituency, the Anderson family. Mr Anderson is a full-time carer for his wife, who has a severe form of epilepsy. He is saving this country a small fortune by caring for his wife, but he does it because he wants to, not because he has to. There are times when he needs not to sleep in the same room as his wife—I have his permission to discuss his case in this amount of detail—and he needs to be able to make that choice. He also has a son with spina bifida, who is now enjoying a degree of independence and living away from his family, but he can maintain that independence only by returning home for about three days a week when the weather is bad. Recently, he has been at home for longer—so that bedroom is needed for Mark and his equipment.

I feel ashamed that Mr Anderson should have to come to see me to ask why the Government are choosing to give money to people who are not even asking for it, when he is going to be taxed for having that bedroom. And it is a tax; when the Government take money out of people’s pockets, that is a tax. This Government are choosing to make life much more difficult for a man who has given up work to care for his wife and to support his disabled son and enable him to live as independent a life as possible. That says a lot about the Government’s approach, and it does not surprise me that Government Members are not seeking to contribute to the debate today.

[Jonathan Edwards]

The hon. Lady will be aware that the tax cut for people earning more than £3,000 a week was introduced in the last Finance Bill. Members of the parliamentary Labour party abstained in the vote on that Bill. She has made some pretty strong comments today. Is she now saying that that abstention was a catastrophic political mistake?

[Fiona O’Donnell]

No, I am not. I would say that the catastrophic political mistakes are most often made on the nationalist Benches. We are stating clearly that, if we were in government today, we would not be scrapping the 50p rate. There is no ambivalence or doubt about that. That is the position of Labour Members in the Chamber.

I appeal to Liberal Democrat Members to remember their Lib Dem values, and to all Government Members to think about the people who are contacting them. Are they the people who earn more than £150,000 a year, or are they the families and pensioners who are struggling with the cost of daily living? I urge Government Members to vote according to the representations that they are receiving.