Dame Harriett Baldwin, Chair of the Treasury Committee, makes a statement and answers questions following the Committee’s publication of a report on access to finance for small and medium-sized businesses.
Dame Harriett Baldwin highlights the important role of the independent Malvern College as one of the largest employers in Worcestershire, and contributing £28 million to the local economy. She also raises concerns at the public cost if its 300-plus fee-paying pupils had to be transferred to local state schools.
Harriett Baldwin welcomes HMRC’s backtrack on its plans to shut the self-assessment helpline every year between April and September, whilst she backs the long-term strategy to move people online, she says it cannot be done by randomly shutting down telephone helplines.
Harriett Baldwin highlights an article in which the independent director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies confirms the average UK earner now has the lowest effective personal tax rate since 1975—lower than in America, France, Germany or any G7 country.
Harriett Baldwin, Chair of the Treasury Select Committee, welcomes the Chancellor’s tax-cutting Budget and supports the Government’s plan to get inflation down; to increase the growth rate and the growth capacity of the UK economy, without sparking inflation again; and to get debt falling.