I started yesterday by walking into Beckenham first thing – talking to passers-by as they went to work en route. By 8.00am I was the Big Breakfast Café having a cup of tea with accompanying egg, bacon, beans and toast. I ended the day with a group canvassing in Shortlands along Hayes Way before a wash-up drink in the Jolly Woodman with Robert Straker as well as Mary and Brian Cooke .
Today I thought I would highlight some of the proposed changes which a Conservative government would make around money matters and taxation in the Conservative Manifesto. Who does not believe in a simpler and fairer tax system with people keeping more of the money they earn? I hope we have demonstrated this in the way we have been adjusting tax rates over the last 5 years. Income tax has been cut, fuel duty has been frozen and taxes on businesses have been reduced so that they can hire more people and grow.
The tax free Personal Allowance has cut tax for 26 million people and 3 million people on the lowest incomes will pay no income tax whatsoever – typically getting £825 more in their pockets a year. If elected we will be raising the tax-free personal allowance from £10,600 as now to £12,500. In addition the threshold for the 40p income tax rate would be lifted to £50,000. At the same time there will be no rises in income tax, national insurance or VAT.
Personally I am delighted that young families have been helped by a manifesto proposal to double the hours of free childcare from 15 hours per week to thirty. That will really help a lot of working parents in Beckenham – particularly those whose childcare costs are so high that they negate the money a parent can make by going to work.
For the elderly it is very good news that the triple lock on pensions has been re-stated. Pensions will rise each year at whatever is the highest – inflation, average earnings or 2.5 per cent. That is seriously good news.
I am very pleased too that we have re-introduced the proposal that the inheritance tax threshold should be raised to £1m. This is something that we were forced to abandon after the Coalition was formed in 2010. Introduced it will definitely affect many people in Beckenham’s Constituency. For instance many houses here cost around £1 million and these would now be passed on to the family without that wretched inheritance tax which I consider to be daylight robbery anyway.
In short I am very content with what has been proposed on money matters and taxation in the Conservative Manifesto. The proposals made in it have been rigorously examined by the ‘experts’ now and they judge they are ‘doable’. They are certainly good news for Beckenham.