Finance Bill 2015-16 to 2016-17 — Second Reading — 11 Apr 2016 at 22:51

The majority of MPs voted to increase the personal income tax allowance, change the way dividends are taxed, cut capital gains tax, and to reduce the amount which can be taken out of a pension tax-free from £1.25m to £1m.

MPs were considering the Finance Bill[1], the Bill was the primary means by which the announcements in the March 2016 budget[2] became law.

The Bill:

  • Left the income tax rates for 2016-17 unchanged[3] at as follows; basic rate: 20%; higher rate: 40% and additional rate: 45%.
  • Increased the threshold for starting to pay higher rate tax from £32,400 to £33,500 as of 2017-18.
  • Increased the income tax personal allowance for 2017-18 to £11,500 (For 2016-17 it was set at £11,000).
  • Introduced a a personal savings allowance from 6 April 2016 to remove tax on up to £1,000 of savings income for basic rate taxpayers and up to £500 for higher rate taxpayers.
  • Changed the way dividend income is taxed, abolishing the Dividend Tax Credit from April 2016 and introducing a new Dividends Allowance of £5,000 a year. Rates of tax on dividend income above the allowance were set at 7.5% for basic rate taxpayers, 32.5% for higher rate taxpayers and 38.1% for additional rate taxpayers.
  • Reduced the pensions "Lifetime Allowance", the amount that can be drawn from a pension scheme without triggering additional tax, from £1.25 million to £1 million, effective from April 2016.
  • Left fuel duties unchanged.
  • Left duties on beer, spirits and most ciders unchanged.
  • Increased duty rates on all tobacco products by 2% above RPI inflation.
  • Introduced a new soft drinks industry levy
  • Left the VAT rates unchanged.
  • Reduced the higher rate of capital gains tax from 28% to 20% and the basic rate from 18% to 10%
  • Reduced the planned corporation tax rate for 2020-2021 by 1% to 17%
  • Made no overarching changes to inheritance tax but introduced a number of changes to its implementation.

A "soft drinks industry levy" was included in the Budget, but is due to be implemented in the 2017 Finance Bill, not this Bill.

The majority of MPs supported the motion:

  • That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The passing of this motion enabled the Bill to continue on its path to becoming law.

Debate in Parliament |

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Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (Aye)Minority (No)BothTurnout
Con301 (+2 tell) 0091.8%
DUP5 0062.5%
Green0 10100.0%
Independent0 1033.3%
Lab0 185 (+2 tell)081.3%
LDem0 6075.0%
PC0 30100.0%
SDLP0 2066.7%
SNP0 50092.6%
UUP2 00100.0%
Total:308 248087.2%

Rebel Voters - sorted by vote

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
no rebellions

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