§ I turn now to the taxation of savings.
A central theme and purpose of the Government's policies is the creation of a genuine popular capitalism.
That means wider home ownership, wider share ownership, and wider pension ownership. Over the past 824 eight years, the Government have actively promoted the first two, and have now embarked on the third: home ownership, above all through the council tenant's right to buy; and share ownership, through the rapid growth of employee share schemes, through the massively successful privatisation programme, where Britain has led the world, and most recently through the new personal equity plans, which I announced in last year's Budget and which started up on 1 January this year. In the first month of the scheme, more than 2,000 people a day took out personal equity plans, many of them first-time investors, as I had hoped.
We know that 63 per cent. of households now own their own homes, 2½ million more than in 1979. However, there have been no official figures for the more explosive growth of share ownership in Britain over the past eight years. The treasury and the Stock Exchange therefore jointly commissioned a major independent survey of individual shareholding in Britain.
The results are now available. They show that there are now some 84½ million individual shareholders in this country, amounting to one fifth of the total adult population, and roughly three times the number there were in 1979.
Mr. Eric S. Heifer (Liverpool, Walton)So what?
§ Mr. LawsonThe hon. Gentleman may learn.
Then there is wider pension ownership. Two years ago, the Government embarked on a major strategy to extend the coverage of private pension provision and to give individuals far more flexibility and choice in the way they provide for their retirement. We have already introduced a number of important new measures to that end, and the tax changes I am announcing today will complete the picture.
The cornerstone of the Government's pensions strategy is the introduction of an entirely new means of provision for retirement, developed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. This is the personal pension, which will be launched at the beginning of next year, three months earlier than planned.
Personal pensions are an important new dimension of ownership. They will enable employees—if they so wish -to opt out of their employers' schemes and make their own arrangements, tailored to fit their own circumstances. And they will provide a new opportunity for the 10 million employees who at present do not belong to an occupational scheme to make provision of their own and, if they so wish, to contract out of SERPS.
In my Budget last year I undertook to bring forward proposals to give personal pensions the same favourable tax treatment as is currently enjoyed by retirement annuities. These were duly published in a consultative document last November, and the necessary legislation will be contained in this year's Finance Bill.
In addition, to encourage a wider spread of occupational schemes, employers will be able to set up simplified schemes with the minimum of red tape. This will be particularly welcome to many small employers who have been discouraged by the complexity and open-ended commitment of a full-blown final salary scheme. And there will be much greater scope for transferring between different types of pension scheme. Again, the Finance Bill will contain the necessary tax provisions.
Finally I have decided to go beyond the proposals set out in the consultative document in one important respect. 825 Starting in October, I propose to allow members of occupational pension schemes to make additional voluntary contributions, with full tax relief, to a separate plan of their own choice instead of, as now, being restricted to plans within their employers' schemes. They will be able to top their pensions up to the present tax approval limits.
The proposals I have outlined — along with the measures my right hon. Friend has already taken—will make it easier for people to take their pensions with them when they change jobs, which will be good both for labour mobility and for independence. They will widen the range of choices people can make about their pensions and will mean that in future individuals will have much more control over the way in which their own pension contributions are invested.
Taken as a whole, the changes we have made in the last two years have brought about a radical transformation in the ways people can provide for their retirement. There are new options for employers and much greater freedom for individuals to plan their own pensions. This will lead to a further major extension of ownership, as people start to take advantage of the new opportunities.
But the generous tax treatment of pensions can be justified only if it is not abused. I propose, therefore, to introduce some limited changes to the present rules to restrict the excessive relief which can be obtained in some circumstances, particularly by a few very highly paid people. These will include a stricter definition of final salary and, for all arrangements entered into from today, an upper limit of £150,000 on the maximum permissible tax-free lump sum, coupled with more rigorous rules on how pension and lump sum benefits can be calculated.
The cost of the overall pensions package will inevitably depend on take-up, but with that proviso is estimated at £65 million in 1988–89.
For friendly societies, I have decided to replace the existing tax-exempt life assurance limit based on the sum assured with a new limit based on annual premiums. I propose to set this at £100 a year, which will greatly increase the scope for the traditional societies to offer life policies to their members.
The tax-exempt limits governing sickness and accident benefits which trade unions provide for their members have not been changed since 1982. With effect from today, I propose to increase them to £3,000 for lump sums and £625 for annuities.
Finally, in this section, I turn to inheritance tax. In my Budget last year I abolished the pernicious capital transfer tax on lifetime gifts between individuals, which was particularly damaging to the ownership and health of family businesses. This year I propose to extend the same exemption from tax, on similar terms, to gifts involving settled property where there is an interest in possession. This will not, however, apply to discretionary trusts. These changes will be of particular benefit to family businesses and to heritage properties, both of which are often held in trust.
I also propose to make two minor changes affecting business assets. First, holdings in companies quoted on the unlisted securities market will henceforth be treated for inheritance tax purposes in precisely the same way as holdings in companies with a full Stock Exchange listing. Second, business relief for minority holdings in excess of 25 per cent. in unquoted companies will be increased from 30 per cent. to 50 per cent. The purpose of both these 826 changes is to concentrate business relief more accurately on those assets which could provide funds to pay the tax only at the risk of damaging the business.
The abolition of the tax on lifetime giving was of the first importance to family businesses. but I remain conscious that it did little to help the smallest taxable estates, where the family home is often the principal asset.
I therefore propose to make a substantial increase in the threshold for inheritance tax, from £71,000 to £90,000, coupled with a simplification of the rate structure from seven rates to four. As a result of this change, the number of estates liable to inheritance tax will be cut by roughly a third. The cost will be £75 million in 1987–88 and £170 million in 1988–89.
Despite this substantial relief, however, and all the other much-needed reliefs that my predecessor and I have introduced since 1979, the House may be interested to learn that the expected yield of inheritance tax in 1987–88, at over £1 billion, is three times the yield of capital transfer tax in 1978–79, an increase in real terms of almost 50 per cent.