HC Deb 19 July 1956 vol 556 cc1359-60
13. Dame Irene Ward

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give an assurance that before the next Budget he will consider special taxation reliefs for elderly people living on small fixed incomes.

Mr. H. Brooke

The burden of taxation on all sections of the community, including the elderly people whose cause my hon. Friend pleads, is constantly in my right hon. Friend's mind.

Dame Irene Ward

Will my right hon. Friend ask the Chancellor whether it might come out of his mind on to paper? Would he bear in mind that both the Prime Minister and Chancellor have stated that the people living on small fixed incomes are worse off than anybody else? In view of the fact that he has given some very helpful advice to some others about what will happen in the next Budget, may I ask whether he wants all these people to die before he is ready to introduce an amelioration of their position?

Mr. Brooke

I can give my hon. Friend the assurance that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will consider all this. What I cannot do, before the present Finance Bill is on the Statute Book, is to anticipate what will go into the next one.

Mr. Wade

Have the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friend the Chancellor considered the extension of the housekeeper allowance to elderly spinstersh—

Dame Irene Ward

Not me.

Mr. Wade

—who are often just as greatly in need of this tax allowance as elderly men?

Mr. Brooke

All these matters have been open to debate for a great many days on the Finance Bill. It is not the Chancellor of the Exchequer who has resisted discussing any of them.