Orders of the Day — Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 16 April 1964.

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Mr Bruce Milan:

I absolutely agree with a good deal of what the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd) said. His proposals for taxation reform are quite radical and the kind of thing which has been advocated from this side of the Committee on many occasions. A capital gains tax, a more effective death duty, dealing with trust settlements and the rest—all these things meet a response on this side of the Committee. There is no need for the hon. Gentleman to try to persuade the Opposition of the necessity for these reforms.

I very much agreed with the hon. Gentleman on one thing which he said about these reforms. He related them to a programme for making the economy more dynamic. This is absolutely right. Government spokesmen have very often—the Secretary of State for Industry and Trade did it yesterday—drawn a comparison between tax reform of the kind the hon. Gentleman mentioned, on the one hand, and a dynamic economy, on the other, saying that if we did all these things-if we penalised wealth in the way the hon. Member suggested—we could do it only at the expense of keeping down economic growth, removing economic incentives and the rest.