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Finance Bill

No, it is a fiscally neutral Budget, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said at the time. That is the correct representation of what happened in this Budget. The changes that I described are offsetting measures to enable this very substantial reduction in personal taxation. They also simplify the tax system, while protecting and boosting the incomes of vulnerable groups. We have had some discussion of what the IFS has said, so let me quote what its director said about the Budget package:"““To reform the system in a useful way, within tight financial constraints and with only modest gains and losses should be a cause for congratulation rather than criticism.””" I hope that the Committee shares that sentiment about my right hon. Friend’s Budget, The hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne asked on Second Reading and again today why the package of measures was being introduced next year and not this year. A number of elements of the package cannot be introduced without further primary legislation, such as changes to the upper earnings limit for national insurance and to empty property rate relief, which will clearly take some time. In addition, the package entails significant changes to payroll systems, and it would not be reasonable to expect them to be implemented in just a few weeks. That is why the package of measures that I have identified, and which permits us to make this dramatic reduction in personal taxation of £2.5 billion, needs to be introduced next year, rather than this.