Budget Proposals and Economic Survey

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 24 April 1950.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Herbert Williams Mr Herbert Williams , Croydon East 12:00, 24 April 1950

I agree that we ought to keep to the Debate, but the decision has been made that we should have a Debate nearly as wide as that on the King's Speech. I was giving one isolated example of waste. I was about to say when, quite properly, I was pulled up, that what is true of my own son is true of the sons of thousands of people. The Government have made an awful mess of this business, and there is great waste.

The present system of taxation is such that no professional man or executive in any business can save up enough money to enable him to retire. That is the position. It is a life sentence. There are masses of people of this type in my constituency. They have to work until they die, because it has become impossible for anybody to save out of income to any appreciable extent. That is a major disaster. I do not believe in the humbug of what is called "fair shares," and none of the hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite believes in it. They do not practise it. If they do, why should Parliamentary Secretaries be paid less than Ministers? Why should Ministers be paid more than M.P.s?

I believe in inequality. Everybody I have ever met who is worth anything in this world believes in inequality. They want to lift themselves up and not to be dragged down to a dull level which is apparently their fate in the eyes of hon. Gentlemen opposite when they come out with the words, "Fair shares," which mean nothing. Hon. Gentlemen opposite are completely insincere. I believe in inequality: so does everybody. People want to better themselves. There is no equality in Russia. There is a greater range of inequality in Russia than there is here. The Chancellor is using this device to bring us all down to a dead level.

The time will come when men of ability will be forced to say, "This country is no longer any good to us. It denies opportunity to men of ability." The great evil of the present level of taxation is that it is destroying the initiative of the young men of ability and completely exhausting the resources of limited companies. In a moderate period of time there will inevitably be a major economic crash, because capital for the conduct of business will no longer be available. I have spoken for six minutes longer than I intended, but I have wanted to get a lot of this off my chest for a long time.