Andrew George

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett). She refers to the fact that this is a Labour Budget, but I want to highlight how it does not contribute as I would hope it would—of course, good growth in every postcode is a good thing—to combating widening inequality. I am not sure it lives up to what I believe the Labour party argues for. I submitted early-day motions 939, 940 and 963, which provide constructive proposals to the Chancellor on addressing widening inequality. They were constructive proposals, as one would expect me to provide. The Conservatives want to focus on the benefits bill, and of course we should, but they do not seem to want to focus quite so much on the benefits bill of tax benefits for the wealthy. It is that area that I wish to concentrate on most. Some 23% of the Government tax take—£217.5 billion —is available in tax reliefs, as Treasury Ministers know full well. The Treasury Committee has identified that 80% of those tax reliefs have never been publicly costed or evaluated. I hope the Government will look at these matters. I will come on to one on housing in a moment. The Secretary of State referred to my private Member’s Bill, which is up for debate on Friday 13 November. It addresses both the need for first homes before second homes, and need before greed in the planning system. I hope that Labour Members will come along to support the Bill. What concerns me in particular is the business rates relief system. The Red Book, on page 130, refers to the availability to small businesses of rates relief for the retail, hospitality and leisure sector. That includes, of course, holiday lets. The problem is that, because holiday lets have invariably been second homes, people have flipped their property from council tax to business rates, applied for small business rates relief and then paid nothing at all. The Government have extended the valuation from £12,000 to £18,000, which has then made a larger group of people, who are wealthy enough with their second properties, now able to take advantage of this particular loophole. In areas like mine, with large numbers of second homes, we would like the half a billion pounds that has gone from the taxpayer into the pockets of second home owners, to be put into social and affordable housing. It is driving inflation in the system and creating further inequality. I do hope the Government will look at this issue again, think again and address it.