Now let's have fair taxes for the majority - Campbell

4.00.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 10th Oct 2007

Sir Ming Campbell

At a lively Prime Minister's Questions, the first since the PM's u-turn on an early election, Ming Campbell challenged Gordon Brown on taxation. Noting that the government had stolen some Liberal Democrat tax policies in yesterday's pre-budget report (PBR), he asked Mr Brown if he would adopt a policy to help people on middle and lower incomes, by cutting the basic rate of income tax to 16p in the pound? In his second question, Ming turned to council tax, noting the 'glaring omission of any proposals for reform' of the unfair tax. Council tax is set to rise by twice the rate of inflation. 'How fair is that for lower and middle income families?' Ming asked. Alistair Darling's statement yesterday has been criticised across the board in today's papers for its shameless 'theft' of policies from the opposition parties such as raising the inheritance tax threshold and measures to get more tax from non-domiciles. The Times headline of "The Magpie Budget" is typical.

Vince Cable, Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor said "Yesterday's announcement of falling growth and the tightest spending round in a decade is the result of ten years of neglect by Gordon Brown. For too long the Prime Minister callously disregarded the mounting problem of personal debt, fuelled by irresponsible lending. With households now facing 160% income to debt ratios and spending a fifth of their income servicing existing debts, it has become inevitable that spending and growth will fall. The government has ducked the tough choices which needed to be made on public spending, rather than cutting wasteful projects such as ID cards, Child Trust Funds and the NHS IT Scheme and reallocating the money saved to front line public services."