Budget Resolutions - Income Tax (Charge)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 2:20 pm on 28 November 2017.

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Photo of Angus MacNeil Angus MacNeil Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Environment and Rural Affairs), Chair, International Trade Committee, Chair, International Trade Committee, Chair, International Trade Committee 2:20, 28 November 2017

I just want to probe the Secretary of State about what thinking has been going on in government following Bill Gates’s speech in the spring about taxing robots. We only have to go into a high street shop to see that many jobs have been displaced by machines, which are not taxed. If a person was still working there, they would be paying tax to the Exchequer, and that money could help future innovation. Have the Government given any thought to all these labour-saving devices, and to getting some revenue from the way in which robots are doing many of the jobs that people used to do?