Torsten Bell

I did not say anything of the sort. I said that we are not going to have a £10 million mansion in Westminster paying less tax than a terraced house in Blackpool, and that has been brought to an end by this Budget. I have heard the worries of some Opposition Members about the surcharge, and I want to assure the House that less than 1% of properties will be affected, and even for the £10 million mansion I have mentioned, it will not exceed £7,500 a year. To put that in perspective, it is not even enough to bribe a Russian-sympathising, Putin-praising Reform politician—or a traitor, as we should always call them. Other reforms in the Budget will ensure that everyone who drives on our roads helps to maintain them. It will address the fact that tenants pay higher taxes than their landlords and tackle some of the tax breaks that have exploded in recent years, disproportionately benefiting the wealthy. That is the fair thing to do, and it is the responsible thing to do. I know that others want to take a different approach, and I heard representations from some to raise income tax. Who was particularly keen? The shadow Chancellor. He told eager listeners—[Interruption.] I think he should listen. He told eager listeners at the Conservative party conference that he would “go for income tax”. In fact, he was more enthusiastic than that, going on to label it the best “thing to do”. We have not taken his advice, and are instead delivering major reforms—reforms ducked by Tory Chancellor after Tory Chancellor. We have heard a lot about welfare today, and I recognise why. It is because our welfare system is failing, and we are changing it. We are undoing the huge incentive to be labelled too sick to work that the Conservative party built into universal credit, and the OBR has confirmed that this will move tens of thousands more people into work. The shadow Chancellor claimed he had a plan to reform welfare, but he did not mention that it was quashed by the courts. What he actually did as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions was to oversee the subsidised leasing of luxury cars, with the ordinary taxpayer bearing the cost of tax breaks for Mercedes and BMWs on the Motability scheme. Well, those days are done. The scheme has itself removed luxury cars, and it has committed to half of its cars being built in Britain. We are reforming its tax breaks to save over £1 billion in the coming year.