Fabian Society - "Government can't cut inheritance tax and end child poverty," says Barnardo's chief

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"Government can't cut inheritance tax and end child poverty," says Barnardo's chief

The government's autumn climb-down on inheritance tax has fatally weakened Labour's mission to end child poverty, it was claimed by Barnardo's Chief Executive Martin Narey at the launch of the Fabian's new pamphlet How To Defend Inheritance Tax.

"The money that has gone into inheritance tax is almost exactly the same as needed to halve child poverty by 2010 - but there isn't room to do both.

If the Labour Party can't make that argument then I'm not sure what the Labour Party is for."

Stuart White, one of the pamphlet's authors, highlighted "deep disatisfaction about the current state of debate around tax" and called for a new campaigning group to take on the powerful, populist coalition - including the Daily Express, Richar and Judy, Stephen Byers, the Conservative Party and the Observer - that have so far proved so effective in winning the argument.

"In light of the government's twitchy and nervous silence, we need a new group to make the case for inheritance tax - and tax in general - in a way that politicians are unable to do."

This sentiment was echoed by Brendan Barber of the TUC:

"There is an urgent need for a much livelier debate for a much fairer taxation system and this pamphlet is an important and welcome contribution to that. Tax is not a dirty word - it recognises what binds us together and if tax is not seen as fair it is deeply corrosive to our democracy."

Barber hignlighted that the tax system needs to be transparently fair in order to maintain popular support. Tax avoidance needs to be robustly addressed - one of the problems of the current inheritance tax arrangements is that the super-rich avoid paying it, thus undermining vital political consent form the midlle classes and alienating the working class.

The debate took place on Tuesday 29th April 2008 at 6pm, in the Grand Committee Room of the House of Commons,

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