§ Mr. Peter Brooke (City of London and Westminster, South)With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to present a petition signed by people working in the City of London in my constituency. The petition concerns the tax concessions on luncheon vouchers that have remained static since 1948.
Since the petition is much more eloquent than anything that I could say about it, I shall say no more, but wish, in these circumstances, to invoke my right to ask the Clerk of the House to read it in full.
The Clerk of the Houseread the petition, which was as follows:
To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled.The Humble Petition of the principal organisers of the petition concerning luncheon 1632 voucners presented to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Thursday, 24th March 1977, shewethThat the said petition to the Chancellor was signed by more than nine and a half thousand users of luncheon vouchers within the City of London, who are mostly not represented by a collective body able to lobby on their behalf;That the Chancellor was requested therein to rectify the existing discrepancy between the 15p tax concession on a luncheon voucher and the tax free subsidy enjoyed by canteens;That the tax concession was originally intended to provide comparable facilities for those without canteens and to run pari-passu with its counterpart, a canteen subsidy, thereby avoiding the aforesaid anomaly;That since 1948 the tax concession has remained static whereas canteen subsidies have automatically increased year by year with inflations and increased costs.Wherefore your petitioners pray that your Honourable House will raise the tax free allowance on luncheon vouchers to meet the requirements of 1977.And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c.
§ To lie upon the Table.
§ Mr. SpeakerWithout commenting on the petition may I say that the new boy did well.