TAXATION POLICY AND THE RAILWAY SIGNAL WORKERS' DISPUTE

EDM number 1464 in 1993-94, proposed by Harry Cohen on 06/07/1994.

That this House considers it axiomatic that the Government's regressive income taxation policy benefits the highly paid, whilst its policy of imposing an unprecedently high rate of VAT, like the earlier poll tax, redistributes the taxation burden from the highly paid to the lower paid; notes that most United Kingdom citizens now pay approximately 45 per cent. of wages in one form of taxation or another, and can calculate that the 5.7 per cent. offer to the railway signal workers, which was withdrawn following the Government's veto, is worth less than 3 per cent. in real terms, and that nearly half of the 5.7 per cent. rise would have returned to the Treasury via taxation; notes that the 3 per cent. figure is consistent with the Government's pay guidelines; and therefore draws the inevitable conclusion that the Government's motives for inflicting misery on the travelling public is purely political malice.

This motion has been signed by a total of 39 MPs.