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Finance Bill

I am trying to make progress, to reach the point where I can reply to the genuine concerns expressed by Labour Members. Removing the 10p rate has enabled us to introduce further measures that reduce child poverty and remove pensioners from tax, but we have also produced a tax system with only two main tax rates applying to the same income as the two main rates of national insurance. This is now one of the simplest personal tax systems in the developed world. Having set out the benefits of the changes that we have made, I acknowledge that, as a consequence of redirecting resources as I have described, some households have less income as a result, and that those households are often on a low income. I regret that that is an effect of those changes, which is why we would have looked to help such households in the future anyway, and we intend to do that very thing in the next days and weeks. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead for his kind comments, particularly his thoughtful and constructive contribution to tonight's debate. He has rightly put Ministers on their mettle, and he will want to see that progress has been made, as will other right hon. and hon. Friends. I can assure him and others listening that that work is being taken forward with great seriousness, and we are looking to respond to the concerns that have been expressed.