§ Sub-section (1) of Section twenty-one of the Finance Act, 1920 (which allows deductions in respect of children), shall be extended by adding after the words "educational establishment," the words "or is wholly or mainly maintained by the claimant while learning a trade, profession, or occupation, or is apprenticed to any trade or profession."—[Mr. Gates.]
§ Brought up, and read the First time.
§ Mr. GATESI beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
I do not know whether I can hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be equally complacent in this case as in the last. I would remind the Committee that Section 21 of the Finance Act, 1920, gave to parents of children under 16 years of age or who, if over 16, were receiving full-time instruction at any university, college, school or other educational establishment, an allowance of £36 for one child and £27 for each subsequent child. That allowance has now been increased by the Finance Bill of this year to £60 1299 and £50 respectively. The object of my Clause is to extend the benefit of the deductions allowed to parents who have not the means to keep their children at a university or other educational establishment, but who are obliged by their circumstances to apprentice them to trades or article them to professional people to enable them to become self-supporting at a comparatively early age. There are, I am afraid, a great many people, such as widows of officers and professional men—lawyers, doctors, and so on—who have to maintain their children at home while they are apprenticing them or articling them to lawyers or accountants or putting them into business. I have a letter in my hand from a constituent of mine who apprenticed his daughter to a hairdressing establishment, and it was pointed out that if he had been able to send her to a greater educational establishment, he could get the allowance, but as he was only apprenticing her to a business and she was living at home, he could not get the allowance. It seems to me to be very unfair that the better class of parents, who can afford to send their children to a university, should have the benefit of this allowance, while the poorer parents of, shall I say, the poorer middle classes, are unable to get it. I do not think that it would cost the Chancellor of the Exchequer a large sum of money to remedy this injustice. That it is an injustice I think every hon. Member of the Committee will agree. I am encouraged to move this Clause as the Chancellor of the Exchequer was reported in the Budget speech as saying:
The burden of bringing up a family of young children weighs very heavily upon the smaller class of Income Tax payer and is not sufficiently discounted by our present legislation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th April, 1928; col. 871, Vol. 216.]I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will give the smaller Income Tax payer the benefit of this concession, and I am sure that he will receive due recognition from all the poorer classes of professional people.
§ The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Major Elliot)I am afraid it would be impossible to ask the Committee to accept this new Clause. It is suggested that for some reason or 1300 other the Clause, if accepted, would be for the benefit of the poorer classes as against the better-to-do classes, but I cannot see how that would come about through the words of the Clause, which would allow an allowance to be made indefinitely while the children of the claimant were learning a trade or profession. The Mover of the Clause is himself a professional man, and he will realise that even professional men are kept by their parents up to rather an advanced age. It is not supposed that a surgeon can make much more than his laundry bills until the age of 40, and it would be quite unreasonable to expect the Inland Revenue to keep track of such people up to such an age. But even in the case of the poorer parents, it would mean that the inducement offered to them to keep their children at some recognised educational establishment in preference to sending them out to work would be insufficient, and I do not think it would give the benefit to the poorer people as against the richer people, while I am sure it might lead to undesirable consequences in the case of the very poor parents themselves.
§ Question, "That the Clause be read a Second time" put, and negatived.
The CHAIRMANThe new Clause in the name of the hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Womersley)—(Amendment of law as to levying of betting tax)—would create an extra charge and is therefore out of order, and the same remark applies to the new Clause in the name of the hon. Member for The Hartlepools (Sir W. Sugden)—(Amendment to 17 and 18 Geo. V.).
§ Sir WILFRID SUGDENI would like some explanation of the differentiation that is made in respect of my Clause, which, with very great respect, eliminates the extra charge.
The CHAIRMANI think not. I think that the hon. Member proposes to insert an alternative which, in certain cases, might work out in a greater duty being paid than under the provisions of the Finance Act of last year. His alternative in some cases might work out greater and in some eases less, but, as a rule in these cases, even if one taxpayer has to pay more, that prevents the matter from being raised by a private Member even if 999 pay less.
§ Mr. WOMERSLEYMay I ask if the same applies to the Clause standing in my name?