There's one tax the Tories REALLY like

The Tories and Business Rates

I've exposed lie after lie made by Putney Conservatives about the impact of Business Rate revaluation on Putney businesses - Justine Greening going round telling local businesses their rates are set to rise when in reality they'll be cut in West Hill, Roehampton and on the Dover House estate.

But this story, exposed in tonight's Evening Standard exposes the reality of Miss Greening's concern for London businesses. Tory Mayor Boris Johnson had the chance to spare London businesses from the CrossRail levy - a tax on businesses to pay for the new train link that will be of very little benefit to Putney residents or shops, but which you'll still have to pay. He could have come up with a fundraising mechanism that lifted more small businesses out of paying the tax altogether. He could have come up with a mechanism that put the bulk of the burden on those who will benefit financially from Crossrail.

Instead, he's pressed ahead with the full Tory tax rise, saddling businesses with a MIMINUM increase of £1,100 a year.

Just consider how cynical the Conservatives have been on this - and Justine Greening has been at the forefront of this deception. On the one hand, they demand that a revaluation - that will increase rates on some Putney businesses but cut them on far more - be halted. They hint - but have not actually put down in writing - that they'll halt the revaluation if they win power. But when they have a cast iron opportunity to help businesses with their tax burden, as they do right across London what do they do? Hike tax by more than £1,000 a year!

In that light do you REALLY believe that Justine Greening will vote to abandon a revaluation of business rates if she ends up in power in fourteen weeks' time? Of course she won't. It's shabby political posturing in the full knowledge that they won't do what they're telling you they will do. They should put a stop to it - and if they won't, you'll have to put a stop to it at the ballot box.

Dover House shops do better with Labour

Putney's Conservative MP is at it again!

In a recent report she's written: "I've worked with the Dover House shops on their local business concerns such as business rates..."

I'm glad she has, but do you think she told those businesses that if she gets her way they'll pay more in business rates? You see, she's campaigning against the current revaluation of business rates. But 81% of this parade will see LOWER RATES if the revaluation goes ahead.

The table above - which comes from Wandsworth's Conservative council's database of all borough businesses - shows every business in the Upper Richmond Road shop parade she's talking about. The ones in blue - four shops - will see their rates rise slightly under the revaluation. Seventeen will see their rates fall with savings of up to £3,500.

Isn't it a distinctly strange outlook for an area's MP to be campaigning to make life harder for local people? Yet that's exactly what Putney's Conservative MP is up to. I can guarantee this: I'm standing as MP to do the opposite - stand up for Putney and reduce business rates on the majority of shops in the Dover House parade.


Note: I've hidden the exact numerical amounts of rates each business will pay because that's commercial information they're entitled to keep confidential.

Envy is not attractive; aspiration is not a dirty word

I've got nothing against toffs. I don't believe in class war; enemies of the people exist only in the fantasies of extremists; envy is not attractive and aspiration is not a dirty word.

It's remarkable that these truths are no longer regarded as self-evident. When David Cameron says that it's not where we've come from that matters - it's where we're going, he's not wrong.

But it is reasonable to be troubled by the fact that the Conservative shadow cabinet is dominated by multi-millionaires, the landed gentry and old Etonians. Such disquiet has nothing whatsoever to do with envy or resentment, and is everything to do with the representative nature of our politics.

Afterall, how can they get what life's like for the vast majority of us? And if they can't - and I really don't see how they can - how on earth can they represent us and take decisions in our best interests?

How can George Osborne get what it?s like to face unemployment and surviving on benefits when from day one he was destined to inherit his family's centuries-old, multi-million pound wallpaper business?

Has David Cameron, a direct descendent of Queen Victoria's uncle, ever had to worry about choosing between heating the house and putting food on the table?

As far as I know, the Conservative Housing spokesman Grant Shapps, the proprietor of a multi-million pound printing firm, has never had to experience the threat of repossession or life on a never-ending council house waiting list, in which sharing a bedroom with two siblings while his parent sleeps on the sitting room floor in an overcrowded flat is daily life.

And how astonishing is it that that someone like Zac Goldsmith, who aspires to set the taxes you and I pay, sees no problem in himself being "non dom" for tax purposes?

So the Conservatives have questions to answer, but they don't concern Eton. The real question to pose should be: is aspiration really encouraged and rewarded by tax cuts for the richest 3%? If you believe it is you?re a Conservative. If you believe tax cuts start from the bottom up you?re a progressive and Labour remains your natural home.

Labour has endured a bruising two years - and too much of the damage done has been self-inflicted. So I understand why the class war, Tory toffs, bash the bankers rhetoric puts a smile on the face of the more partisan Labour activist. But it makes me want to hide under a table. Here's why: According to the polls Labour is holding on to barely 60% of those who voted for us in 2005. This toff rhetoric sends these lost voters running for the hills because it is the exact opposite of why they returned to Labour in the first place. They supported us because we were a healthy, outgoing, positive and optimistic Labour Party that wants to help those who want to do better. Labour is rightly the party for those struggling to get by; but we must also remain the party for those who want to get on.

I grew up on a housing estate and was raised close to the area I'm seeking to represent. I come from a working class family - my Mum stacked shelves in Boots for 25 years and my dad was a dustman. They wanted more for me than they had for themselves, encouraged me to do well at school and - 25 years later, I've got a great job and a standard of living they never had a chance of themselves. That's what's great about Britain. To see those chances shared out more widely and equitably is why I'm in politics. It's why the Labour Party exists and it stands in opposition to the instincts and outlook of the Conservatives. So as a progressive, yes, I want the richest 1% of British people shouldering 23% of tax revenue. But let's not call them names while they're doing it.

Poverty and the Conservatives

The Conservatives have recently been trying to present themselves as the champions of the poor. You may be someone who's been a bit surprised by this Damascean interest in poverty by the Conservatives, but in case you're thinking "That David Cameron bloke seems sincere on this issue, so let's give him a whirl", here's what he's also on the record as saying on the subject...


"Labour?s plans for minimum wages, the Social Chapter and large increases in spending and taxes would send unemployment straight back up."

David Cameron, The Chronicle (Stafford), 21 February 1996

"I long for a chancellor who stands up and introduces a Budget which abolishes all of Brown's endless reliefs and credits - and uses the money to cut tax rates at the same time. 'My Budget has no title', the peroration would go, 'it's your money, spend it as you choose.' Am I alone?"

David Cameron, GuardianUnlimited, 18 April 2002

"Unravelling Labour?s tax credit system will be a complex and long-term task."

David Cameron, Speech in Devon, 1 September 2005. He now wants to scrap the Child Trust Fund for those earning over £16,000 and tax credits for couples who each earn over £25,000.

"The Government should stop new spending on Child Trust Funds for better off families? [Tax credits would be kept for families] in receipt of Child Tax Credit and have a household income in 2009/10 (as calculated for CTC purposes of £16,040 or less)"

Conservative Party Press Release, 6 October 2009

"The Government should stop paying tax credits to households with incomes over £50,000 by starting to means-test the Family Element of Child Tax Credit at a lower threshold." Conservative Party Press Release, 6 October 2009

You see, it's really easy to say "poverty is bad and I'm against it" - but it's action that counts. And David Cameron - and his Conservatives - have a track record of voting against Labour action that has helped the least affluent the most: the minimum wage; tax credits; child trust funds; initiatives like SureStart that provide the support that enable parents to return to work.

Labour's record stands - proudly - in stark contrast:

• 900,000 pensioners lifted out of relative poverty since 1998 - pensioners now less likely to be living in poverty than the population as a whole.
• Since 1997 we have spent around £100 billion more in total on pensioners (in current price terms) than if we had maintained the policies of the last Tory Government.
• On average the poorest third of pensioner households are around £2,100 a year (or £41 a week) better off on average as a result of our tax and benefit changes they would have been if the Tory system had continued.
• In 1997 the poorest pensioners lived on what would be the equivalent of £98 a week (in today's prices). Today Pension Credit means no-one aged 60 or over has to live on less than £130 a week.
• We have lifted 500, 000 children out of relative poverty since 1997
• We have enshrined in law a duty to eradicate child poverty by 2020

I still come across people who say that the political parties are just the same. Even today, when the Conservatives would wreck the economy by taking us down a path no other major international power has chosen. And even today, when the Conservatives claim to care about the poor but vote against their interests every chance they get.

Send me to Parliament and I'll be a genuine voice who not only speaks up for but acts to help the least affluent in our community.

Why the Tories want to cut Inheritance Tax

This story from today's Mirror, says it all, doesn't it? For all the Tory talk about learning from their dreadful mistakes in the 1980s and 1990s, about being a party that's now interested in ordinary people, and about restoring trust in politics among a cynical public - can you get a more cynical, elitist, selfish and greedy policy than the Tories' Inheritance Tax plan?

The only reason the Conservatives back this cut has nothing to do with making tax fairer - it's because the 4% of estates that would benefit from this tax cut just so happen to include those of David Cameron, George Osborne, Boris Johnson, William Hague and EIGHTEEN members of Cameron's shadow cabinet.

The remaining 96% of us will be paying for the Tories' tax holidays - in fact any average family with children, earning more than just over £16,000 a year, will end up paying more than £1,000 a year extra in tax under the Tories because of their plans to withdraw tax credits.

So if you think taxes should be levied on the poor to benefit the richest 4% vote Conservative.

If you don't, vote Labour.

Childcare vouchers

Last week I attended a meeting with Yvette Cooper MP, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in part because I wanted to raise my opposition to the abolition of tax relief on Childcare Vouchers in five years' time.

Labour has done a huge amount for working families:

• Extending maternity leave to twelve months
• Introducing a statutory right to paternity leave
• Guaranteeing a nursery place for every 3 year old whose parent wants it
• Creating SureStart Children's Centres which help young families with childcare and support

...and much much more. It's a great record and Childcare Vouchers are part of that.

The Government's argument is that by removing the tax relief they can extend childcare to fund 10 hours free childcare per week to 250,000 two-year olds from lower income families. That's a laudable aim, but it shouldn't be at the expense of denying already hardpressed working families help with childcare costs.

Since maternity leave only lasts until the child's first birthday and nursery education doesn't start until they're three, there will still be a year's gap even if the government is able to fully fund their 10 hours a week plan - and that's where Childcare vouchers really help.

Without them, working families will either have to find extra money for childcare, rely on relatives, or stop work for a year.

The Conservative view, at least here in Putney is that a two-year-old's mother's place is in the home, not at work - as expressed by local Tory councillor Kathy Tracey. No ifs, no buts.

If like me you don't believe a one-dogma-fits-all approach is a good idea then we need to find another way. And for those of us in London, the problem is more acute because childcare costs around here are so much higher than elsewhere in the country.

So while it may be true that further north and west childcare vouchers are a tax perk for the very richest families, here in South West London they make a real difference to modest and middle income working families. That's why I don't think they should be scrapped - or at least if they are to be, they need to be replaced with a more equitable scheme that doesn't discriminate against London families who need help paying expensive childcare costs.

More Putney businesses pay less from rate revaluation

My team and I have been sifting through all the Business Rates data following our discovery that Putney's Conservative MP misled people about the changes in her Roehampton newsletter.

The reality is even more disturbing - suggesting that she's presenting the wrong figures across the entire constituency.

Excluding phone masts, advertising hoardings and car parking spaces* which are liable for business rates but not businesses themselves 1,021 Putney, Roehampton and Southfields businesses are going to have their business rates cut; 899 are going to see them increased as a result of the revaluation.

The majority of Putney businesses will pay less after revaluation.

Doesn't sit easily with the Conservative scare-stories does it?

It's also the case that the vast majority of both falls and rises are small. 208 of the increases, and 287 of the decreases are of 5% or less.

There are some big winners and losers here in Putney - as anywhere else - and I'm not going to repeat Miss Greening's mistake of over-claiming or mispresenting the facts. Some businesses are facing large increases in business rates through revaluation, and no doubt for them, this will make life much more difficult. But more are facing business rate reductions - of up to 67% here in Putney, and for them, that's clearly welcome. The issue is simply whether it's fairer to use old, out of date information as the basis for business rates or new, up-to-date records that take account of where things have got better and worse.

Business rates need to be reviewed because that is the fairest way of levying taxes. It's never going to be popular - not because it's unfair but simply because none of us enjoying paying tax, especially if we end up paying more as a result of a revaluation.

Piling taxes on the most struggling parts of Putney, Roehampton and Southfields isn't fair and it isn't right. That's what Miss Greening is campaigning for - that's what the Conservatives stand for.

*For those of you who want to know the complete data set including phone masts, parking spaces and hoardings, it's 1,035 increases, 1,152 decreases - still more winners than losers.

George Osborne: wrong on recession; wrong on recovery

What the experts say about the Tories' policies (part 2)

Will Hutton is Director of the Work Foundation, the leading research body on employment issues in the UK. A former editor of the Observer, he is also a successful author on economics and visiting professor at Bristol University.

On Sunday he wrote in The Observer about the Conservatives' economic plans.


David Cameron declared in his closing speech at the Conservative party conference: "Here is the big argument in British politics today. Labour say that to solve the country's problems we need more government. Don't they see? It is more government that got us into this mess." Not only his audience, but much of the media applauded this apparently killer point.

Except it is wrong. It wasn't the government that got us into this mess ? if what you mean by mess is an ugly recession, an unbalanced economy, profound uncertainty over recovery, grossly indebted consumers, disadvantaged communities hit hard again and a budget deficit of £175bn. What got us into this mess above all was the 30-year rise of Big Finance before which governments unfurled the white flag. Bankers used their power to bend the rules at home and abroad, to lend ever more riskily and supported by less capital, until, finally, a vastly overextended banking system backed by very little capital collapsed. The result is today's economic calamity.

There were many culprits in this story, but the damage stemmed from an obsession to keep government small and markets big. Thus, mergers that created banks that were too big to fail went ahead and their daffy mathematical models went unchallenged. We need to reform our financial system from top to bottom, but neither shadow chancellor George Osborne nor shadow business secretary Ken Clarke began to address this question. Their twin attack was on the state - Osborne's because it was borrowing too much, Clarke's because it was regulating too much.

But as a shadow minister quietly observed to me outside the conference centre, the Tories have a problem. The public now knows that markets fail. Without the injections of capital, liquidity and guarantees for both sides of the banks' balance sheets worth some £1.3 trillion, Britain would now be in the middle of a depression more shocking than the 1930s. To argue that government is the problem just a year after an event like that is intellectually bewildering. The charge against Brown is not that he did too much, but that he did too little. What was he doing allowing bankers to write the Financial Services Authority's constitution so that it did not "discourage the launch of new financial products" and avoided "erecting regulatory barriers" and "damaging the UK's competitiveness"?

The truth is that, as finance has proved, markets need governments. Entrepreneur James Dyson gave a passionate speech at the conference deploring the fact that Britain made so little and Tory shadow economic and business ministers echoed his complaint, talking enthusiastically about the need for Britain to make more, an argument he made eloquently in the Observer in February. Except the only new idea advanced to help, apart from vague talk about science, was the establishment of city technical colleges, a good concept but one alone that is unlikely to spearhead a "making things" revival. The problem for both the Tory and Labour parties is how, given debt-strapped public and private sectors, Britain is going to grow in the 2010s.

Some of what needs to be done is very congenial to Tory ears - low taxes to stimulate entrepreneurship, more competition and encouragement of small firms. But some of what is necessary they would describe as "statist" - creating a financial system capable of serving every firm from infancy to maturity, funding research, creating a network of institutions to disseminate technological opportunities into firms, proactively using public buying power to drive up standards, deploying regulation to open up markets, not to mention building the hard infrastructure. But what can't happen, as some businessmen despairingly confided to me after hearing more shadow ministerial hymns to small business and free markets, is to have a bonfire of controls and imagine the job is done.

The reason the budget deficit is so large is not because the government deliberately drove it up, as Cameron and Osborne argue. The main reason is that there has been a collapse of tax revenues because of the permanent loss of output caused by Big Finance and because, during 2009, the government deliberately decided on a time-limited boost to the economy. It is true that there is a structural deficit of around 6% of GDP which must be brought down eventually through some judicious mix of tax increases, a freeze on public sector pay and public expenditure restraint. But after credit crunches, governments have to be the spender of last resort because with the private sector on its knees, overall demand will otherwise shrink.

I suspect the shadow chancellor privately recognises this, refusing to reveal more detail until he actually has to make a budget next year - if he wins. He may be preparing to stay his hand as a deficit cutter if the economy looks grim. Yet the hysterical anti-government rhetoric does not allow him to admit that fiscal policy works as an economic stimulus and may be necessary if recovery falters.

But his appeal was to the Tory backwoodsmen and women who still love the good, old-time religion, along with the conservative media. It is a political and economic mistake, as both the politically marginalised American and Australian conservatives can testify. Cameron was at his most persuasive when he embraced the "Red Tory" agenda - reshaping the state to attack poverty and re-empower the working class. He even succeeded in winning a standing ovation when he declared that he wanted to lower the 96p marginal tax rate on a single working mother with two kids on £150 a week as her benefits are withdrawn so rapidly.

Here again, it is too simple just to say that government is the problem. The reason why there is so much desperate poverty in towns round the country as disparate as Bognor Regis or Bradford - and why generation after generation depends on benefit - is that there is so little local opportunity. One council leader I met dared openly to say the unsayable - there was no initiative on benefit nor incentive to work that could break the cycle of welfare dependency because there was no local worthwhile work. He had begun to think the best solution would be to move people to towns where there was opportunity. Irreversible de-industrialisation meant his community was sunk.

Yet this kind of solution requires government - government to build homes where there is work, government to help people move and government to do its level best to ensure that economic opportunity is spread fairly around the country. The Tory civic voluntarism of Cameron's speech cannot deal with structural problems on this scale. Red Tories are coming up with some interesting ideas for how to restructure government - I like Red Tory Phillip Blond's proposal to create employee partnerships within the public sector on the John Lewis model. The state may work better and more responsively to citizen concerns. But it won't be smaller.

I went to Manchester convinced that a Tory government was a shoo-in. I left thinking that while Cameron's party is plainly changing there is still a long way to go. Democracies aren't dumb. Too many of David Cameron's party - and some of his own ideas - are still locked in the 1980s. The state is not the enemy. Deployed correctly it is our friend. A few Red Tories have got this message. Cameron's regression will set him back, perhaps even costing him an overall majority in 2010. Labour still has a winning argument to make.


You can read more from Will Hutton here.

The choice on Tax Credits

What the experts say about the Tories' policies (part 1)

Professor David Blanchflower was the one member of the Bank of England monetary policy committee (MPC) that foresaw the crisis in the financial industry. He is now Professor of Economics at the prestigious Dartmouth College in the US.

On Saturday he wrote this article for The Guardian on the impact Conservative plans would have on bringing Britain out of recession. You don't have to take Labour's word for it - just listen to the experts.


We are in the midst of the worst recession most people alive have ever experienced, or will probably ever experience. It is already worse than the 1980s and it isn't over yet. The only comparison is to the 1930s (my parents, now in their 80s, can remember how bad it was). The monetary and fiscal authorities have so far managed to prevent a recession turning into a depression - but it still could, especially if David Cameron and George Osborne have their way.

Some people seem to think it is all over and have called an end to the recession. Far from it, normality is a long way off. It will take a very long time for output, employment and unemployment to return to pre-recession levels. As Mervyn King said at a press conference recently: "It's about levels, stupid."

The evidence is that financial crises are especially harmful and have especially long-lasting effects. Hence any recovery is likely to be slow and anaemic at best.

The simple lesson when you are deep in recession is that a serious policy error is to reverse stimulus too early, which then sends the economy crashing into a depression. This is what happened in the United States in the 30s. Monetary and fiscal policy were tightened before recovery was firmly established, which drove the country back into a deep recession at the end of 1937.

And this week into the current economic crisis stepped the Tories with their ill thought-out plans for (a lack of) recovery. Cut public spending here, freeze public sector wages there, reduce the benefits of the poor, raise the pension age, and so on. It was hard to see any group that stood to benefit from their proposals.

Lesson one in a deep recession is you don't cut public spending until you are into the boom phase. Keynes taught us that. The consequence of cutting too soon is to drive the economy into a depression. That means rapidly rising unemployment, social disorder, rising poverty, falling living standards and even soup kitchens. The Tory economic proposals have the potential to push the British economy into a death spiral of decline that would be almost impossible to reverse for a generation.

The debate at such times is not about big government versus small government. It isn't about moving this service from public to private sector because the private sector can do it better. The debate here is about maintaining levels of aggregate demand. In a deep recession the choice is: the government does it or nobody does it; it is public spending v no spending. You don't worry about paying off debt when you are at war: you have other priorities. Win the war first.

To cap it all, the leader of the opposition, in his speech to the Tory conference, amazingly discussed what he called option one - the possibility that the UK should default on its debt. Mr Cameron, you shouldn't even be raising such possibilities. It's exactly what markets want to hear from a potential leader - you have actually even considered defaulting on our debt? Unbelievable. Better to have said nothing honestly.

There was one bit of his speech I thought sounded like quite a good plan, which he dismissed. That was what he called his option two: "We could encourage inflation, which would wipe out the value of the debt, making it easier to pay off." Sounds like a good idea to me, and probably to you.

Moderate inflation would help all the people in negative equity; rising asset prices would certainly help, and are one of the stated purposes of quantitative easing. A few years of inflation, around 5% or so, would be a really good idea. Keep interest rates low for the foreseeable future, keep the stimulus going.

One possibility is to keep the Bank of England's inflation CPI (consumer price) target at 2% until there is any possibility of hitting it and then simply raise the target. Or perhaps replace the CPI with an index that includes house prices, which would have the same effect of allowing monetary policy to remain loose. We don't need the central bank to reverse policy too soon either. We need to create some inflation for a while.

Cameron concluded his speech arguing for his third option ? "for me the only option". He went on: "We must pay down this deficit. The longer we leave it, the worse it will be for all of us." Actually, wrong: the longer we leave it, in a recession, the better it will be for all of us. I personally would vote for option two and certainly would never even consider discussing option one.

You can read this article, and others by Professor Blanchflower here.

Still want to stake our country's future on him?

Tory VAT bombshell

Tories' secret VAT plan

None of us enjoy paying tax. But in this country there has been a long-settled consensus that if taxes need to be levied they should at least be set fairly, so that those with more wealth pay a larger share.

Tax is one of the big issues that divide the two main parties. Conservatives - not just here but around the globe - they have a big preference for flat taxes that take the same percentage from all regardless of their wealth or ability to pay.

They're also for Value Added (or sales) taxes that again apply to all at the same rate irrespective of their income. And they tend to oppose taxes that result in people paying a greater share the wealthier you are.

A look back through history bears this out. It was a Conservative Government in 1973 that introduced VAT to the UK, it was a Conservative Government in 1979 that increased VAT from 8% to 15%; and it was a Conservative Government in 1991 that raised it to 17.5% and levied it on fuel for the first time, driving tens of thousands into fuel poverty.

And we now learn from the Sunday Telegraph that the Conservatives are considering raising VAT to 20% if they win the next election. We have on record already their opposition to the 50p Income Tax rate for the top 1%; their opposition to Labour's 2.5% VAT rate cut this year that has boosted our retail sector, and their one gilt-edged tax pledge: to abolish Inheritance Tax for estates worth £2million.

Conservative want to cut tax at the top end and raise it at the lowest end- but which will put the biggest hole in the smallest wallets. That's the Conservative tax policy.

This is a parody of fairness. It's immoral and saddles the least wealthy with an unfair tax burden. When those of us on the progressive side of the fence point out that the Conservatives haven't changed this is exactly the sort of thing we mean.

David Cameron believes in the same things the Conservatives have always stood for: cutting tax on the richest and so-called "trickle-down" Thatcherism - he just does it with a "call me Dave" grin on his face.

And he'll have the backing of Justine Greening if you vote for either of them.

As we emerge from the global recession, Britain will need to pay down our public debt. The Conservatives pretend this will be so much more difficult than it is precisely so they can lay the ground for the "inevitability" of a 20% tax rate.

It isn't inevitable. It's plain wrong. And it's typically Conservative.

22 million people £440 better off - from today

Today, 6th April, is the day most of the tax changes introduced in last year's Labour Budget and Autumn Statement kick in.

The headline figure is the increase in personal tax allowance which benefits every single basic-rate Income Tax payer (22 million of us), which instantly has put £440 back in our pockets.

But there are other major increases too: pensions go up £4.55 and the minimum income guarantee for pensioners rises to more than £124 a week.

For families the changes are significant too. As well as introducing a new grant of £190 for expectant mothers to help them eat more healthily during their pregnancy, Child Benefit has already risen to £20 a week for the first child. Child Benefit has almost doubled since Labour was elected. And Child Tax Credits now benefit families by £2,235 a year.

The table above - which if you click on it enlarges - shows just how many of us benefit from these changes.

The Conservatives derided these changes - along with the £5 a week VAT cut - as not providing the slightest bit of help for our country. I don't see how anyone can begin to argue that £440 back in people's pockets means nothing; but then I don't really understand how the Conservatives opposed giving basic rate taxpayers £440 back while calling for Inheritance Tax cuts for just the richest 8% of families.

If you don't think there's a difference between Labour and Conservative politicians, then do look again at the stark contrast between what Labour is delivering and what the Tories would take away.

Inheritance Tax cut: Tories for it before they were against it...before they were for it again

Yesterday wasn't just Mother's Day; it was also the day the Tories' economic credibility disintegrated.

The one and only tax policy the Tories had plucked up the courage to announce was their cut in Inheritance Tax for the very richest 4% of people.

I wrote about it here just a couple of days ago.

Then, on Sunday morning, Shadow Business Secretary Ken Clarke announced that this one tax policy was "no longer a priority".

He added: "I don't think we are going around any longer saying this is something we are going to do the moment we take power."



Then, on Sunday evening, he was told to issue a statement saying, in effect: "err, yes it is, and I didn't really mean what I said earlier." And just to underline that, a Conservative Pary spokesman added: "People should be clear that the promise we made on inheritance tax is a promise we will keep. It will be in the manifesto."

In other words, they support the policy except when they oppose it, but actually they still support it. Thanks for the clarification.

When they're having a bad day, what more could a Conservative want than for Boris Johnson to leap into the mess?

Here he comes, criticising his own party for refusing to reverse the 45% income tax rate Labour will be introducing next year on those earning more than £150,000; something he absurdly called a "deterent on enterprise". Ken Clarke told us exactly what he thought of Boris's view on that: "plain wrong" is how he put it.



Former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once famously said: "You turn if you want to. The Lady's not for turning." A quality the Conservative shadow cabinet has evidently not inherited.

Every time the spotlight falls on a Tory policy it crumbles into dust. Mrs Thatcher had a soundbite for that too: "Weak. Weak. Weak."

I couldn't agree more.

How wrong can you be?

Conservatives claim they want to help ordinary families - yet their first priority is to give 3,000 millionaires each a tax cut worth £200,000 on average. That's what cutting Inheritance Tax for estates worth up to £2million does. It?s a policy that does nothing for 96 per cent of families in this country.

If they meant what they said about helping ordinary families then they'd drop their tax cuts for the wealthiest estates and instead they would support the £145 tax cut that Labour are giving to basic rate taxpayers; and the £5 a week the average household is saving from the VAT cut.

Tory TV gimmick

Can anyone explain to me this absurdity please?

On the one hand, Conservatives claim that the cut in VAT, that puts £260 a year - £5 a week - in people's pockets on average, is a waste of money.

On the other, the Conservatives call for a freeze in the TV License, which will save license holders a stunning £3 a year. They say it'll help people out in these economic times.

£260 = a waste of money
£3 = helping people out

They just don't get real life for ordinary people, do they?

Conservative MPs seek opt out from Minimum Wage

A group of Conservative MPs are backing former Wandsworth Council leader Christopher Chope's Ten Minute Rule Bill that would allow individuals and, de facto, employers to opt out of the minimum wage.

Hundreds of Putney, Southfields and Roehampton residents have benefited from the introduction of the National Minimum Wage, and every tax payer benefits from the fact that we now no longer subsidise poverty pay through benefit payouts as we once did.

Is this really the 'progressive' conservatism David Cameron promised the British people?

Tough questions David Cameron needs to answer #4

Freedom fries

What a shame that French President Nicolas Sarkozy has allowed his critical views on the UK Government's economic stimulus package to become known. However, the real embarassment would appear to be that of the occupant of the Elysee Palace rather than Downing Street, in light of the former's failure to grasp the facts.

Contrary to President Sarkozy's belief that the VAT cut hasn't worked, the reality is that it is one of the two initiatives the Government took last Autumn that have already borne results, as the independent and respected Institute for Fiscal Studies has confirmed.

The first of the two was the first bank bailout. It worked because the banks did not go to the wall: they continue to survive, even if some amongst them have so spectacularly failed to grasp that they're no longer going to be able to continue rewarding themselves for abject failure as before.

And the second was the VAT cut. Not just because it put on average £5 a week in the pockets of everyone. But because the sole sector of the economy that didn't shrink in the last quarter of 2008 was retail. A coincidence? Hardly.

So why might the French Government pour scorn on tax cuts?

A more credible reason is that France believes in the European high-tax social model. They believe that the state is the engine of the economy; that big bureaucracies are the order of the day; that people should pay huge taxes in order to subsidise inefficient nationalised industries and a grossly wasteful state. It's why strikes continue to cripple France two decades after they ceased being an effective means of protest in the UK. It's why unemployment is so much higher in France than the UK. It's why the UK has overtaken France as a larger economy. And it's why tax cutting is anathema - even to a politician supposedly of the right, like Nicolas Sarkozy.

Over in the USA, Republicans are criticising President Obama's stimulus package for not providing enough tax cuts. It seems to me that if we're being criticised from the US hard right for not cutting taxes enough, and from Europe for cutting them at all, then we're in the mainstream and are getting it just about right.

George Osborne's schoolboy errors

Child Trust Fund investments

Like all investments, my colleague John Mann, the MP for Bassetlaw, has been highlighting the drop in value of Child Trust Funds since the global banking crisis began.

I've been campaigning since 2007 to encourage local families to claim their children's trust funds - around three quarters do. On top of the lump sum the Government invests for all babies born since 2002, relatives and friends can add up to £1,200 a year to the accounts.

For me, Child Trust Funds are among the government's most significant achievements and, used wisely, could provide a major help to anyone going to university, starting in work, buying a first car or putting down a deposit on a flat - even reinvesting for a rainy day.

But as investment portfolios have lost value so to have the CTF investments - by as much as 32%. John Mann is calling for all investments to the funds made before the child is ten (which as the scheme is only seven years' old means all investments to date) to be guaranteed. The problem is not so much about whether the funds - which can't be touched until the age of 18 - will recover their value, but more that the losses and instability are giving pause for thought to those who might otherwise have invested.

So much of the current global financial crisis is down to confidence - or the lack thereof. Banks won't lend to each other because of this lack of confidence, and that's driven those with less cashflow to the wall; in turn starving businesses of much needed financing and sparking a chain reaction. John Mann's principal concern is restoring confidence to the Child Trust Fund idea - because this is one of the most significant ways a family can invest in their future.

Goldsmith gambles as Tories ridicule £5 savings

Last week's Mail on Sunday reported that Conservative candidate for next-door Richmond Park, Zac Goldsmith, has won "around £150,000" in bets he made on Barack Obama wining the US Presidency.

The website Political Betting questioned the fact that the odds Mr Goldsmith - son of Sir James Goldsmith who famously stood for Putney in 1997 and who left him a £500 million inheritance - reportedly received in order to net such large winnings are ones which "mere mortals" aren't able to get from bookies - and that's an issue in itself.

However, in the same week as the Tories' mocked the £5 a week the cut in VAT has put in the pockets of average families and pensioners, to me it's another sign of how the Tories just don't appreciate the importance of money to ordinary people. They also obviously failed to notice the one sector of the economy that actually expanded in the last quarter was retail - both due to the big discounts but also because of Labour's VAT cut.

They have said that the recession should just "run it's course" without any government help because no matter how bad it gets, they're not affected in the same way ordinary families are. They mock £5 a week being put into people's pockets, because to them £5 is a worthless sum. And they can regularly fritter thousands away on gambling whilst at the same time lecturing us all on financial responsibility.

Cold Weather Payments

With weather this week set to fall several degrees below zero, Labour Government Cold Weather Payments have been triggered.

Labour increased the Cold Weather Payment last year from £8.50 to £25 a week. You should be eligible for a Cold Weather Payment for each week of this cold spell if you receive Pension Credits or if you are getting Income Support or income-based Jobseeker's Allowance and have a child under five. There are other possible eligibility criteria, which you can check here.

Cold Weather Payments are triggered when the average temperature where you live is recorded as, or forecast to be, zero degrees Celsius or below over seven consecutive days during the period from 1 November to 31 March.

You should recieve your CWP automatically but if you haven't received it or want to check whether you're eligible, contact either the Pension Service or Jobcentre Plus on 0800 055 6688.

Parking permits up 27%

The day after Tory Leader David Cameron lectured us about the evils of tax increases, Wandsworth Conservatives unveil a 27% increase in the cost of residents parking permits.

The price of a permit will now be £95 - a cost that has increased 44% since the council elections two years ago.

Curiously, the Conservatives mentioned nothing about their plans to hike up the cost of parking permits in their election manifesto for those elections - just as they forgot to tell us about their plans to close Wandsworth Museum or West Hill Library.

This is the reality of Wandsworth: Council Tax may be low but only because the Tories claw back the money through stealth taxes like this.

Inflation busting parking permit hikes are just one example; council tenants pay among the highest rents in London; pensioners needing home helps pay among the highest charges in London; charges for collecting bulky rubbish are among the highest in London; the amounts raised through library fines among the highest in London (and slammed by the Taxpayers' Alliance, no less); leisure centre charges among the highest in London; even the cost of dying - burial charges - are among the highest in London.

The irony of this 27% parking permit hike is that at the last council elections Labour in Wandsworth under my leadership pledged to make parking permits for the first car in every household free - which we'd have paid for by increasing the costs for second and subsequent parking permits in multi-car households. Of course, the Conservatives won those elections - so they'll say you get what you voted for.

It goes to show the real difference your vote makes locally.

Labour Pre-Budget Help for Families

A summary of Labour help for families from today's Pre-Budget statement:

• Cheaper shopping from Monday as VAT is reduced by 2.5%
• £75 increase in Child Tax Credits taking them to £2,235 for low income families from next April
• Child Benefit to increase to £20 a week from next April: when Labour was first elected in 1997 this benefit was just £11 a week
• A one-off payment of £70 for children with disabilities next January
• The temporary personal allowance increase of £120 to help families caught out by the abolition of the 10p tax rate made permanent and increased to £145 from April: this will help 4.7 million households
• Taking anyone earning less than £22,000 out of paying National Insurance all together
• The new Savings Gateway to help families save: the Government will add 50p to every £1 saved
• Forcing Energy companies that have failed to put low income households on their lowest tariffs to do so
• £150 million more - on top of the already spent £50 million - to help low income households insulate their homes
• Vehicle Excise Duty increase capped at £5 next year, and in 2010 cut by up to £30 if you drive a less-polluting car
• £1.8 billion to build new affordable homes for rent and shared ownership - £775 million brought forward to next year to kick-start the construction industry and provide thousands more affordable homes
• Mortgage help for those who have lost their jobs doubled - now it covers mortgages of up to £200,000 up from £100,000
• £15 million extra for expert help with debt advice for families - £10million of which could go to the Citizens Advice Bureau

Labour Pre-Budget Help for Pensioners

A summary of Labour help for Pensioners from today's Pre-Budget statement:

• Cheaper shopping from Monday as VAT is reduced by 2.5%
• £6 a week increase in Pension Credits from £124 to £130 a year
• £5 a week increase in Basic State Pension from £90.70 to £95.25 a week
• A one-off payment of £60 on top of the £10 Christmas bonus
• The temporary personal allowance increase of £120 to help pensioners caught out by the abolition of the 10p tax rate made permanent and increased to £145 from April
• The new Savings Gateway to help Pensioners save: the Government will add 50p to every £1 saved
• Forcing Energy companies that have failed to put Pensioners on their lowest tariffs to do so
• £150 million more - on top of the already spent £50 million - to help pensioners insulate their homes

Live blogging the Pre Budget Report

4.35pm Same old Tories: Osborne believes he knows more than John Maynard Keynes about economic stimulus. Tories would send UK industry to the wall, make the recession deeper and longer lasting. And they've also announced their opposition to an increase in National Insurance for the very wealthiest. This speech could have been delivered by John Major or Norman Lamont during the last Tory recession of 1990-1994.

4.33pm Osborne is just absurd. He's now comparing the UK with Japan - which borrowed more than 100% of GDP in the last decade. Even with our increased short-term borrowing, our borrowing as a proportion of GDP is massively lower than neighbouring economies including France and Germany.

4.29pm Osborne is now attacking the VAT reduction which his own, far more experienced former Chancellor Kenneth Clarke supported on Newsnight a few days ago. As I wrote earlier today, watching a Conservative oppose tax cuts is a truly bizarre phenomenon.

4.28pm George Osborne is reading a script that doesn't fit with today's announcement. It suits the Tory Party to pretend that the global recession is only hitting the UK but it just isn't true and it just won't wash. If they don't understand this basic fact, they can't possibly have the ideas to fix the problems. It's why the Prime Minister is leading the world's major economies while the Tories want to re-run the failed Thatcherite policies of the 1980s and 1990s.

4.26pm OK, that's the Statement over, and while George Osborne is squeeking away in response, let's summarise what's happening: VAT will be cut from 17.5% to 15% from Monday; except for alcohol, petrol and tobacco. National Insurance rates will increase by 0.5% and a new 45% Income Tax rate for the top 1% if Labour is re-elected at the next election but not before.

And there will be much more help for pensioners, families, children, and small businesses.

4.24pm One-off payments for Pensioners and children with difficulties on top of the Christmas Bonus of £70 for individuals and £120 for couples.

4.22pm Announcements coming thick and fast: big increases in Child Tax Credit, Pension Credits, the Pension, Child Benefit - and the changes will come in from January, not the start of the next financial year in January.

4.20pm Help for savers: a new Savings Gateway where the Government will add 50p for every £1 saved - scheme will run with major banks and the Post Office.

4.19pm Vehicle Excise Duty bands will still be introduced. In 2009, rates will increase by a maximum of £5. In 2010, we will increase the duty by a maximum of £30, while less polluting cars will see NO INCREASE or a reduction of up to £30.

4.17pm Helping people back to work: careers advice in the workplace before people are made redundant will be expanded to every single worker - not just the largest employers. Extra help to prevent those experiencing a temporary job loss becoming long-term unemployed will be worth £1.2billion.

4.15pm More affordable homes: investment in new affordable homes to rent will be more than doubled, adding £775million to the existing £700million budget announced in the Spring. Absolutely critical announcement.

4.11pm Help for home owners. Last month we recapitalised the banks; this month we will guarantee - ie underwrite - certain new mortgages for a temporary period. New council to monitor lending and borrowing by major lenders. Repossession must be the last resort: there will be a three month period between the last repayment made and any repossession action is commenced. Much more free legal and debt advice announced.

4.10pm £100 million extra for extra home insulation. Labour tripled cold weather payments in the Budget this Spring. Government will force energy companies to put households on cheaper tariffs if the companies have not done so voluntarily by the end of the year.

4.09pm Economic slowdown should not jeopardise efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Reform of Air Passenger Duty: new 4- band APD system with those who travel further will pay more. Seems sensible to me.

4.06pm Total package for small business equates to £7billion

4.05pm Two more measures to help Businesses: increase in Corporation Tax deferred and change to accounting rules to allow business to offset losses of up to £50,000 against previous five years' profits.

4.02pm Help for small businesses: exemption from business rates for businesses with empty properties. Change to tax payment schedules on all taxes, not just Business Rates to enable businesses to spread their repayments as they can afford. Businesses also need help with loans as Banks have tightened their lending: £4bn deal with the European Investment Bank to pass onto businesses. £1bn small business credit scheme announced.

4.00pm With Labour, the UK Budget will be back in balance by 2015.

3.59pm Duty on Petrol, Alcohol and Tobacco will be increased to offset the VAT reduction.

3.58pm National Insurance will increase by 0.5%, but no-one earning less than £22,000 will pay any NI contributions. New 45% higher Income Tax rate will be introduced for those on £150,000 or more - 1% of all UK households.

3.57pm Temporary tax cut from May for basic rate taxpayers who were hurt by the abolition of the 10p tax rate will be made permanent - and increased to £145 per year.

3.56pm VAT to be cut to 15% for a year, coming into force next Monday. Retailers urged to pass this £12billion tax cut on immediately.

3.55pm £3billion of capital spending brought forward to improve motorways, affordable housing, energy efficiency and modernising primary and secondary schools. This is investment brought forward.

3.52pm Government will find £5billion of efficiency savings from public services, on top of over £30 billion in the past five years. We will increase spending on public services to £286 billion.

3.47pm Borrowing will increase this year to £78 billion and then £118 billion next year, but then fall to £105 billion in 2010, then £87b, £70b, and £54 billion in 2014. This represents a rise in debt to 57% next year, before rapidly falling back. Borrowing is backed by the CBI, IoD and the IMF, among others.

3.46pm Debt will be repaid by 2015/2016, which will enable us to continue investing in public services.

3.44pm Chancellor now setting out the framework how the borrowing is fully costed and will be repaid. Labour has cut borrowing down to 36%. The extra borrowing be proposed will amount to between 0.5% and 1% of Britain's GDP.

3.43pm Here's the choice between Labour and Conservative: the Tories will let families go to the wall; Labour will borrow to make this downturn as short and shallow as possible.

3.41pm IMF forecasts first slow down among all industrialised nations since 1945. Output will fall in the first two quarters of next year by between 0.75 and 1.25% but then begin growing again because of the action to be outlined today; Inflation will be just 0.5% by the end of next year.

3.38pm The UK has the highest employment leves ever. Benefit claimant counts are 2 million below the last Conservative Government's double-recession. Government Debt among the lowest of the industrialised world. And we have doubled investment in public services. The Chancellor says this shows Labour DID fix the roof while the sun was shining - we fixed the roofs of schools, hospitals and council homes.

3.37pm No British investor has lost any money from the banking crisis thanks to Labour government action. What would have happened had we followed the Conservative plan of not stepping in to rescue Northern Rock?

3.33pm Labour Government will continue to lead the global community next year when we chair the G20 group of leading industrial nations, building on Gordon Brown's international leadership. Highlights issue of Crown Territories, which offer lower tax rates but the Bank of England cannot be the lender of last resort for such territories.

3.32pm The Chanceller is setting out the global economic context - "an unprecedented global crisis". Conservative MPs don't seem to have realised that the whole global economic crisis was triggered by massive US Housing problems back in the Summer - where have they been?

3.30pm Here we go!

The Chancellor is going to move his Pre Budget Report - which always used to be called the Autumn Statement - at 3.30pm this afternoon.

I'll be live-blogging the speech, highlighting the key points and what they mean for Putney, London and the country.

By the way, the live blog will be added to this particular post, rather than lots of separate posts, so keep refreshing your browser to keep up to date.

The pre-Budget Budget

You can tell how concerned that the Conservatives are that they are on completely the wrong side of the debate about how to mitigate the economic slowdown by the amount of time they are spending attacking the reduction in VAT that's likely to be announced later today.

Conservative bloggers like Iain Dale are getting in quite a state about this - he's even dug up one unattributed small businessman who's threatened not to pass on the reduction in VAT onto customers - all to show how ineffective tax cuts will be. It's nonsense of course - as the news media has found today, most shoppers welcome any help they can get and VAT-cuts will put more money in people's pockets.

I do find Conservatives lining up to attack tax cuts bizarre. No doubt they'll also attack the increase in the top rate of tax to 45% for those earning substantially over £150,000 a year, because god forbid we should ask the very richest to contribute a little more when times are tight.

Both these insights are devastating to the Conservatives because as each day passes we're seeing the true face of the Tories, and it's unchanged from that of the last twenty years:

• They're against cutting VAT - a regressive tax that hurts those on low incomes more than the wealthy because it takes a greater share of their income
• They're against increasing Income Tax for the wealthiest 10% - despite income tax being a progressive tax; that is the more you earn, the more you pay
• They're against public investment in the economy at the very time when private investment is drying-up: a re-run of the stance that produced two huge, damaging recessions in the 1980s and 1990s and almost 4 million unemployed.
• But they're in favour of Inheritance Tax cuts for those with estates valued at £2million - a tax cut that won't benefit anyone but the very richest

I cannot recall a weaker, less competent, less accomplished, more inexperienced Shadow Chancellor ever. George Osborne and the Tory Treasury team - which include's Putney's Conservative MP - have nothing to offer but a Thatcherite response to the global crisis we face. They remain the party that thinks "unemployment is a price worth paying". Last week in Parliament a senior Conservative MP opposed any intervention to help those affected by these difficult economic times by and said that the recession should be allowed "to run it's course". Same old Tories.

Putney Pensioner

The new edition of my newsletter for local senior citizens, The Putney Pensioner, has just been published.

Because of the huge increases in fuel prices this year - especially for gas - this could be one of the most difficult for pensioners and everyone else who struggles to pay their energy bills.

The Labour Government has already announced increases in the Winter Fuel Allowance and a big rise from £8.50 to £25 per week in the emergency fund that gets paid out if we experience especially cold weather. But look out for further announcements in the Chancellor's Pre-Budget Statement later this month for more help.

It's really important that pensioners claim everything they're entitled to, which is why this edition of the Putney Pensioner leads with this important story.

The edition also talks about work finally set to start on Putney Hospital; on veterans badges, the RAF Bomber Command Memorial fund and the safety checks for electric blankets the Fire Brigade is organising.

You can read the new edition here in Adobe PDF format. It goes to all pensioners in sheltered housing around the constituency plus anyone who subscribes.

More Putney Child Trust Funds claimed

A little over a year ago I ran a campaign with local schools to encourage parents to claim Child Trust Funds for their kids.

Child Trust Funds (CTFs) are a Labour Government initiative that creates a saving account for every child born since September 2002, then invests a lump sum of between £250 and £500 in it. There are further government top-ups to the fund at 7 and in their teenage years. Families and friends can add to it and it can't be touched until their 18th birthday.

At the time I launched my "Claim your CTF" campaign, just over 71% of Putney families had claimed their Child Trust Fund voucher to set up the account. One year on that figure has climbed to almost 76%.

That still means that almost 1 in 4 local families are letting thier kids miss out on a serious dollop of cash when they reach adulthood - to spend on tuition fees, a deposit on a first home, or to help buy a first car, for instance.

If you think you're children may be missing out call the Child Trust Fund helpline: 0845 302 1470

Green taxes: wrong conclusions being drawn

One of the conclusions some people are leaping to after setbacks for councils that have tried to introduce so-called bin taxes; from Boris Johnson's plans to repeal the higher congestion charge fee for larger cars; and from the current furore over increased road tax for the more polluting vehicles is that green taxes equal electoral suicide.

On the face of it who could possibly argue with the evidence of the unpopularity of these taxes, vented through the ballot box?

But in reality, it's not green taxes that are the problem: it's extra taxes, and the abuse of environmental charges to pursue other political ends that voters - quite understandably - are reacting against.

Take each of those issues I mentioned above. I support the principle of the polluter paying more. But the congestion charge is what it says on the label: a charge to reduce congestion, not to reduce pollution. If a political party want to suggest a new tax to reduce polluting vehicles on our streets then fine: let's have an open, honest, upfront debate involving the public. But don't cynically attempt to bolt on a "pollution" justification to hike up a tax that has nothing to do with its objective.

The same is true with controlled parking: charges to park on a particular street exist because there is not enough roadspace to park the number of vehicles - residential or commuter - that wish to occupy it. They are not an excuse for Lib Dem councils like Richmond to fleece their own residents above and beyond their already exhorbitant council tax.

And when we're talking about charging people who don't recycle, why aren't we also talking about both rewarding those who do with tax rebates - AND scrapping that proportion of council tax devoted to refuse services as well? Councils can't have it both ways: either charge through council tax, or charge households individually - you can't do both and expect to get re-elected.

People are not against green tax: they are just against politicians trying to squeeze even more money out of them on the pretense that its for the environment. Politicians need to wake up that the public aren't stupid: they can see what are stealth taxes and what are serious, honest attempts to address a particular problem. That's why the congestion charge itself was and remains broadly popular, and why the gas-guzzler surcharge (and the zone extension) was not.

I've argued in earlier posts that incentives are far more effective in dealing with climate change than taxes. I've also made clear my concern that the stampede towards the environmental agenda which we've seen in the past five years would actually do more harm than good to the cause - and we've seen that in the exploitation of green tax for more tax.

Green taxes are good - and honestly applied, they're not unpopular either. We need to start being straight with the public - transparent in their levying, ringfenced in their use, encompassing rewards and incentives as well as taxes and charges, and neutral in the overall level of tax levied as a result. That way politicians will avoid reaping the whirlwind of electoral defeat as they did last week.

10p tax: democracy works

This week, the Government responded to pressure from Labour's grassroots and backbenches and produced a substantial and generous package to correct the problems created for some of the least affluent in society by the abolition of the 10p tax rate.

The package will be worth £120 per person to all basic rate tax payers - so as well as those who lost out from the 10p abolition, it will also benefit others who are feeling the pinch as fuel and food prices rise as a result of glocal economic pressures.

Significantly, the Chancellor has done this by raising the personal tax allowance: the amount of income on which we don't have to pay any tax, which is the fairest way to help the poorest. It is also welcome news that this measure will be backdated to April which means this help will go even further.

I received a bit of media attention for my criticism of the impact of the abolition of the 10p tax rate. As I wrote in my original post, I was particularly concerned about the impact on pensioners in Putney.

So I'm delighted by this announcement because, simply put, democracy works. As I wrote originally, when you have made a mistake it is a virtue, not a vice to admit to it.

For those of you who saw the exchanges in parliament, just contrast the considered, generous remarks of Labour MP Frank Field - the leader of those of us who were most concerned about the 10p tax problem, who worked constructively with Ministers to deliver this package and the braying, squeeling, Punch-and-Judy yah-boo reply from the Shadow Chancellor, still as out of his depth as ever.

I'm in politics because I want to get things done - and Putney pensioners and those on low incomes - as well as middle income earners, will now see the results of that approach.

Abolishing the 10p tax rate

Labour stands for social justice or it stands for nothing. That is why the very real prospect of some of the least affluent families facing a virtual doubling in their tax bill under a LABOUR Government is indefensible.

Yet that is what will happen when the 10p income tax band is abolished - a move announced in the 2007 budget but which will come into law with the passing of this year's Finance Bill. Anyone earning over £18,000 will be unaffected or indeed better-off with the abolition of the 10p band, because the quid-pro-quo of that abolition was the reduction of the 22p tax band down to 20p.

But everyone who currently only pays income tax at the 10p rate will now find that they are paying 20% tax - and that means pensioners, part time workers and low income workers. In other words, three of the core groups Labour exists to serve.

I recently had a letter from a pensioner under 65 who lives in a West Hill council estate; someone who receives a basic state pension plus pension credit; but who also receives a small private pension that takes her income above the tax threshold. The extra amount of tax she'll now have to pay is not vast: but should she be paying any more when people earning over £35,000 are going to be paying less? Of course not. When other bills and food prices are rising? Of course not.

When you are in the wrong it is a virtue, not a vice, to admit it. The Government is in that situation right now. Unfortunately it does not appear to be willing to do so on this critical issue. The responsibility for holding the Labour Government to Labour ideals therefore falls to the backbenches: the MPs that give Labour its majority in the House of Commons.

I understand the difficulty normally loyal backbench Labour MPs are now in: I am not standing to be your Labour MP to go to Westminster and then habitually vote against a Labour Government. So in no way do I underestimate the dilemma loyal Labour backbenchers face - and the distaste voting down our own government leaves them with - it's the same for me.

But the government is wrong on this and if it refuses to back down or rectify its mistake - as they have said they will not, I can see no purpose, merit or honour in being a Labour MP if that role is to make life harder for the least affluent, the pensioners and the part-time workers of Putney.

Fuel poverty

Last week's double-digit fuel price rise by NPower - almost certain to be followed by similar increases by the other UK suppliers - is going to have a real impact on low-income households in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields.

Fuel poverty is when 10% or more of a household's income is devoted to paying fuel bills. There are, of course, other ways to measure fuel poverty - not least the pensioners whose homes go unheated because they can't make ends meet. So there are three measures I want to see our Labour Government take in response.

First, we need legislation to force all fuel providers to offer their very lowest fuel tariffs to everyone - not just those who pay by direct debit. The very poorest can't access such direct debit discounts because too often they don't have bank accounts. In fact, the poorest often end up paying the most because charges for electricity keys or coin-operated meters are usually the highest - and it isn't the billionaires of Chelsea who pay for their energy this way.

Second, I want the Winter Fuel Payment (WFP) increased this year. Do you remember the arcane and pernicious way the Conservatives used to administer the WFP - when temperatures had to fall below a specified amount for so many days in succession before Pensioners were permitted to apply for a measly amount of financial help? The consequence of their cruelty was older people dying because they could not afford basic levels of heating for their homes.

I'm proud that Labour scrapped the Tories' miserly formula, made the WFP universal and significantly increased it so that today can be worth up to the equivalent of £6 a week on a pension. But in light of the extra costs of fuel it's again time to consider raising the Winter Fuel Payment. And we need to consider whether the WFP should be made to all households in fuel poverty, not just to pensioners.

And finally I think we need to start measuring how successfully our energy companies are developing Britain's fuel independence. Simply put, I don't want the UK relying on Russian gas or Middle-Eastern oil and more - and it's not good enough for our energy companies to wail that they are hostages to the whims of the magnates who control these supplies. We need to generate far more of our own energy.

If you are a pensioner and haven't yet received your Winter Fuel Payment for this year, or in the past call the Helpline on 08459 15 15 15. You can also use contact them online and download a claim form here.

Feedback from The Putney Paper

I've already started receiving comments and questions arising from the Autumn edition of the Putney Paper, still being delivered around the constituency. One constituent emailed me about the feature on the housing crisis. He made the point that my ideas about raising the Stamp Duty threshold (since imitated by the Conservatives!)weren't radical enough: that to really help Putney residents we needed an exemption far higher than £250,000.

He's partly right. The problem is that the housing pressures in London are so much worse than the rest of the country because it's so much more expensive living here. The consequence of a national Stamp Duty threshold at £250,000 - for first-time buyers only - as the Conservatives now propose is that in parts of the country that buys people a very large house; in Putney it may just about get you an ex-local authority flat in a tower block. I think they're wrong both to apply the policy nationally and only to first-time-buyers.

It's surely crazy to come up with one-size-fits-all policies like that when the country isn't one size. So my response to the constituent who contacted me was that yes, £250,000 is the absolute minimum we should be looking at locally.

But I also believe we need to increase the Stamp Duty threshold incrementally, to allow the market to absorb the changes. My worry is that if all that comes of this idea is that sellers simply increase their sale prices to match the amount buyers save by not paying Stamp Duty, the policy fails. So we need to be measured. But rest assured: my five point housing plan represents just the start of what we need to do to address this massive, complex problem - and over time, given the chance, I'll be building on these ideas.

Child Trust Fund follow-up

I've had a really great response from local schools to my letter encouraging parents to sign up for the Child Trust Fund (see my post on 24 September for more).

As a result, getting on for a thousand parents have received information from me explaining how to claim their children's Trusts, worth up to £500 - one of Labour's landmark achievements for supporting families.

I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank the schools that responded to my letter: this is exactly the sort of strong working relationship across the community that will be the norm with me as MP for our area.

If you haven't received my letter it may be because your school hasn't responded to me. You can either contact me direct - email stuart.king@putneylabour.org.uk, or ask your school about it: I wrote to all State nursery and Primary schools in the constituency and several that are privately-run too.

This is free money with no strings for your child when they reach 18 - why not claim it?

Free money - no catch: why not claim for your kids?!

Today I'm launching a campaign calling on all eligible Putney, Roehampton and Southfields parents to set up Child Trust Fund accounts for their children and build a nest egg for their future.

I've written to parents of nursery school-aged children all over the constituency to mark the fifth anniversary of the Child Trust Fund, established by Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2002.

The Child Trust Fund is a great way of saving for a child?s future. All parents with children born since September 2002 should have received a voucher worth at least £250 to get an account started. For families on lower incomes it?s worth £500, and there will be further top-ups when children reach the age of 7 and during Secondary School.

I'm pleased that over 3,000 parents in Putney have already opened an account for their child, but I want to encourage everyone eligible to open an account and get friends, family, grandparents and the whole family involved. Every child in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields should start their adult life with a nest egg whether that?s to help to go to university or to start a business or to put a deposit down on a house.?

Figures show that in Putney, 4,644 Child Trust Fund vouchers have been issued. 3,300 savings accounts have already been opened by parents themselves. But 1,314 are still to be opened ? that?s 1 in 4 children missing out. Trusts are automatically opened by HM Revenue & Customs if the vouchers are not used after 12 months, but it?s best if parents open them so they get the right account for their child.

For further information on the Child Trust Fund, please call the helpline on 0845 302 1470.