During the course of his remarks the DUP MP said,
“The fact that the threshold for high income child benefit charge has remained unchanged for 10 years now is certainly incredible and not usual when it comes to government threshold – even the standard personal allowance for tax has risen by almost a third from 2013 to the personal allowance in 2023 during the same time period.
In the interests of fairness it is noted that this level of income tax thresholds have been frozen in cash terms since 2021/22, with government policy that they will remain frozen up to and including 2027/28 – but for a working family in tandem with the child benefit freeze find themselves even harder pressed to pay the bills.
The question that Treasury will be working out is what would thresholds be if they were uprated with inflation? As the members of the Treasury cabinet are aware - The usual practice is that income tax thresholds are uprated based on the annual inflation rate of CPI in the September prior to the start of the following tax year. For example, CPI inflation in September 2022 for tax year 2023/24.
Based on this practice, the thresholds if they had been uprated in line with CPI inflation would be:
Lower threshold of £50,000 in 2013/14 would be £62,644 in 2023/24
Upper threshold of £60,000 in 2013/14 would be £75,173 in 2023/24
The bill also highlights the inconsistency of the fact that a single income home has a threshold of around £50 000 and yet a dual income household could be earning £49 000 each so £98 000 in total and still receive their entitlement and again this shows the inconsistency of the government approach and the reason that this House must take the time to review this matter and get it right.
We have determined that there is a minimum amount that people must have to live in and we fill the gaps – I cannot for the life of me fathom why the only group of people that we don’t seek to give a hand up to are the working backbone of this country.
We know the value of money has changed – times have changed and so too must the child benefit threshold.”