Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Flello Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

T9. The Royal College of General Practitioners has condemned the health Bill and the Prime Minister is widely reported as suggesting an unpleasant end for the Health Secretary. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree with his Cabinet colleagues about that unpleasant end?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the Health Secretary has explained many times, the central purpose of the Bill is to ensure that those who know patients best, the GPs, surgeons, nurses and clinicians, have a greater say—[Interruption.]