Taxes

Melanie Ward Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Mel Stride]

Well yes, exactly. The Government will look to any floating branch or whatever to cling on to, to try to look a little better than they truly are.

We have seen a Government who have indulged in spending like it was the 1970s. The result of that has been to push up inflation, which has led to interest rates being higher for longer than they otherwise would have been. It is all very well for Labour Members to trumpet the fact that there have been four interest rate cuts since they came into office. The reality is that if they had not lost control of inflation, there would have been more and they would have come more quickly. The headroom that the Chancellor has against her fiscal targets is wafer-thin. This is the usual Labour way: spending and spending and spending until it runs out of other people’s money.

[Melanie Ward (Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy) (Lab)]

The shadow Chancellor talks about interest rate rises. Will he enlighten us as to why he thinks we should take lectures on economic competence from his party, which has a shadow Cabinet with 16 members who served in the Government of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng?

[Sir Mel Stride]

It would be sensible for the hon. Lady to look at those on her own Front Bench and ask why they take these appalling anti-business decisions. The answer is that hardly any of them have any experience of private business or of setting up a company—in fact, not one senior Front Bencher from her party has that. That is unlike the Conservatives—whether that is myself; the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp); the shadow Business Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith); or others—who actually understand the real world of business.

--- Later in debate ---

[Darren Jones]

Of course we engage with businesses, small and large, week in, week out, as Ministers in the Treasury, across Government, and in our constituency capacities. As Members know, the introduction of the employer national insurance contributions was weighted with changes in the threshold for payment with the aim of reducing the burden on smaller businesses. We recognised that we were honouring our promise to working people not to increase the headline rates of employee income tax or national insurance in their pay slips.

Like other benefits that replace income, the state pension is taxable, but the personal allowance will continue to exceed the basic and full new state pension, which means that pensioners whose sole income is the full new state pension or basic state pension without any increments will not pay any income tax. The state pension continues to be the foundation of the support available to pensioners, backed by this Government’s commitment to the triple lock. This year more than 12 million pensioners have benefited from a 4.1% increase in their basic or new state pension, which means that under this Government those on a full new state pension will receive an additional £470. The full new state pension is currently projected to go up by around £1,900 over the course of this Parliament, on the basis of the latest forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility.

I note that Members of opposition parties have not opposed these spending plans. They have not said that they think the NHS should get less money this year, or that we have too many teachers, nurses or police officers. If they support our spending plans, I simply ask: how would they pay for them?

[Melanie Ward]

Like many of my constituents, I welcome the investment that was announced by the Chancellor at the time of the spending review for the long-awaited regeneration of Kirkcaldy town centre, a town centre that went only one way under 14 years of Conservative rule and 18 years of the SNP. They talk about support for small businesses, but what really happened is clear. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it has only been possible to do this because of the decisions that we have made to raise revenue?

[Darren Jones]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend, who is an excellent champion for her constituency. She is right to point out that the investment announced for her constituency was a consequence of the decisions made by this Chancellor and this Labour Government to invest in the renewal of Britain.