Part of Finance Bill – in a Public Bill Committee am 12:45 pm ar 13 Mehefin 2013.
Chris Evans
Llafur, Islwyn
12:45,
13 Mehefin 2013
I am pleased that I took that Intervention, because the hon. Gentleman is always informed and always has the facts, and he has added to the Bill and the Committee. However, it is like this. Talking to someone this morning, I said, “If you get people to think about politics for even 30 seconds a day, you have achieved something.” If you talk to someone about all the complicated tax changes, saying, “I’ve cut a penny off your income tax”, it is something they can see and understand. Wealth taxes in this country only bring in 5.9% of the revenue; most of it comes from council tax. Inheritance tax only brings in 0.5% and it is only paid by 3% of the population. At the moment, people are using houses and property to avoid taxes. The simple fact is that people cannot hide a mansion in Monaco, can they?
The provisions are, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North said, a baby step towards a mansion tax. We have heard all the arguments about a mansion tax hitting the richest pensioners—work must be done on the policy, as the Minister said—but a review would show specifically how tax revenue is affected in this country. We will be told that there is the Green Book and the Red Book, but the policy is so important because half of properties worth more than £2 million are under-occupied, and most are in trusts or in businesses that avoid taxation altogether.
I hope that the Minister will tell us how he sees the policy developing and give us his views on the mansion tax. Rather than political point scoring, I want to hear his actual thoughts about a 1% levy every year.
A parliamentary bill is divided into sections called clauses.
Printed in the margin next to each clause is a brief explanatory `side-note' giving details of what the effect of the clause will be.
During the committee stage of a bill, MPs examine these clauses in detail and may introduce new clauses of their own or table amendments to the existing clauses.
When a bill becomes an Act of Parliament, clauses become known as sections.
An intervention is when the MP making a speech is interrupted by another MP and asked to 'give way' to allow the other MP to intervene on the speech to ask a question or comment on what has just been said.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.