Mr.
Hands: How does the hon. Gentleman feel, as a Liberal
Democrat, about the fact that the 50p tax rate is the rate on which he
was elected in 2005 and which his party pledged to
introduce?
Mr.
Jeremy Browne: I was extremely pleased to win my seat in
2005, but I do not know whether that was
one of the reasons for it. I will allow other members of the Committee
to speculate on how that came to pass. I am afraid to say that the
Liberal Democrats did not win the last general election. We are the
only party to have increased our number of seats at all of the last
three elections, but we did not win the last general election and were
therefore not in a position to implement our proposals. To be fair, the
Conservative party had manifesto commitments that it could not
implement and which it has since abandoned during the course of this
Parliament. It is rather different for the governing party because it
is required to honour its manifesto because it won the election on the
basis of that manifesto.
I saw merit
in what Tony Blair said about the Liberal Democrat proposals. He was
critical of the 50p tax rate. He said that it would be unfair in that
it would penalise successful, high-earning people. Tony Blair is a
politician whom I admire in some ways. I thought that he had a point. I
do not want the Liberal Democrats to be a party that punishes people
who are entrepreneurial and successful and wealth creating. Perhaps
Tony Blair and the Labour party have a point. Perhaps it is a problem
if the Liberal Democrats appear to be spiteful towards people who have
earned large amounts of money and contribute to our economy.
I can let
you in on private conversations held within my party, Mr.
Atkinson. I was an enthusiast for the Liberal Democrats’
dropping the 50p tax rate policy, because I regarded it as neither
economically nor politically compelling. I am delighted that my party
came to that decision. It was assisted by Tony Blair and others who
made extremely persuasive arguments, which Labour party members thought
were good at the time, although they have now changed their
minds. That,
then, is my position on such matters. It is a watershed moment and I
know that a lot of Labour MPs feel uncomfortable that the project,
which Tony Blair embarked on in 1994, has come to an end in this way.
It will be an interesting period for historians to look back on. They
will be able to put their finger on precisely when new Labour broke its
covenant with the middle England electorate, which it set such store by
wooing in the 1990s, and when it went back to being the Labour party of
the 1970s and early 1980s, which I can just about remember. That will
create all kinds of changes in our political system, but that is a
debate for another
day. Ordered,
That the debate be now adjourned.—(Mr.
Blizzard.) 7.16
pm Adjourned
till Thursday 21 May at Nine
o’clock.
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