Income Tax: Top Rate — Question

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 2:37 pm on 16 March 2015.

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Photo of Lord McFall of Alcluith Lord McFall of Alcluith Labour 2:37, 16 March 2015

My Lords, I refer the Minister to a recent ONS study which looked at the combination of direct and indirect taxation and found that the group paying most—paying more than the really well-off—was in the bottom quartile. Is not the big social injustice in the tax system in this country that the poorest are indeed paying the most? That is not helped by the Chancellor, George Osborne, and his cohorts rubbishing social security and welfare payments. Does the Minister not agree that that only compounds and exacerbates the problem that we have in our iniquitous tax system?

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