Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Huppert Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the right hon. Lady knows, we have made considerable progress on the internships that operate in Whitehall. When we entered government just over 18 months ago, I was astonished by quite how informal and laid-back the procedures were. We have now put them on a much more open and meritocratic basis, but of course I will look into the cases the right hon. Lady has drawn to my attention.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

T5. My right hon. Friend and I stood for election on a key manifesto commitment to lift the income tax thresholds —[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Let us hear about which commitment the hon. Member for Cambridge wishes to speak.

[Dr Huppert]

I am sorry the party that introduced fees feels the need to shout about it.

We stood on a commitment to lift the income tax threshold to £10,000 and that has started to happen, but we need to go further and faster so that we can help more people across the country. What discussions has my right hon. Friend had with the Conservatives in the Government to try to take that forward?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We included in the coalition agreement our commitment to raising the income tax allowance as the No. 1 priority in our tax reforms for a very good reason: it is an extremely effective way of making the tax system more progressive. Let us remember that we inherited a tax system from Labour that scandalously imposed heavier tax on the wages of a cleaner than on the earnings of a banker. That is why we have increased capital gains tax by a full 10% and why this April, for the first time, we shall be taking more than 1 million people on low incomes out of paying any income tax altogether. I want to go further and faster and that is exactly the kind of thing we shall be debating in the weeks and months ahead.