The report is published
2010 is turning out to be an unusual Parliamentary year for tax matters.
The Treasury Select Committee recognised this in its report on the June Emergency Budget:
‘In previous Parliaments, it was the practice of the Treasury Committee to take evidence on the Budget and to report before the Second Reading of the Finance Bill. This year, that has not been possible. Our predecessor Committee took evidence on the first Budget of the year in March 2010, but was unable to report on it, because of the imminent election. The current Chancellor presented the second Budget of the year on 22 June 2010, and the Second Reading of the Finance Bill took place on 6 July.’
The Treasury Select Committee on this occasion took evidence on 13 July and presented its report on 20 July.
The main focus of the report was on the need to reduce the deficit in the public finances and the crucial issue as to how rapidly this should be done. The present Government is intent to achieve this more quickly than its predecessor and the Treasury Select Committee stated in their report:
‘This is the central and most difficult decision any Chancellor has to take. We have not attempted to challenge the Chancellor’s judgement on the Budget as a whole. There are risks on either side of the Budget judgement. The Chancellor has chosen a somewhat more radical path than his predecessor. Furthermore, he has been explicit that his aim is not only to reduce debt, but to rebalance the economy away from the public and toward the private sector. In this Report, we examine some of the risks and uncertainties in this approach. We expect that the consequences of the Chancellor’s decision will be the subject of many of our future inquiries.’