Schedule 1
Finance Bill
4:30 pm
Philip Hammond (Shadow Chief Secretary To the Treasury, Treasury; Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is one of the great problems as the Government wrestle with the micro-tuning of the tax relief and support system. I suspect that we will see some more of this when we hear the Government’s intended response to the compensation proposals for the loss of the 10p rate. There tends to be a complex process around them, and it tends to become more and more difficult for individuals to identify whether or not they are eligible for reliefs and how they go about claiming them. It is that combination of complexity of calculation, the existing culture of low take-up and the very low absolute value of claims that often means that very few will actually benefit. That is why it seems to us on this side that this arrangement is unlikely significantly to mitigate the loss of the main 10p rate. Therefore, it will not be a major part of the package that the Government—we hear—are going to put together as a solution.