Cameron launches Tory local election campaign Politics live blog
!-- Block 1 --9.00am As I left for my Easter break, MPs were still complaining about George Osborne's March budget. And a week later, as I return, the unravelling of the budget continues. As Patrick Wintour reports in today's Guardian, the Treasury has finally got round to releasing figures showing the extent of tax avoidance among the super-rich in an attempt to defend its plans to cap tax relief for charitable giving. But there are also hints, as the Financial Times reports, that Osborne offer some concessions on this issue to his critics. George Osborne is willing to give ground on his controversial plans to limit tax reliefs on charitable donations, but is set to resist mounting pressure to perform a complete U-turn and exempt donations from the cap altogether, the FT subscription says at the top of its splash. David Gauke, a Treasury minister, appeared to confirm this when he was interviewed on the Today programme this morning.blockquote classquotedWe're not legislating for this today. This is something that will come in in next year's finance bill and we made it very clear from the very beginning that between now and then we were going to be working with charities to find ways to protect those charities that are particularly affected by large donations.blockquoteI'll post more from the Gauke interview later.MPs are returning to the Commons today after their Easter recess. And David Cameron is launching the Conservatives' local election campaign with a speech in Derbyshire. Here's the full agenda for the day.em9.30amem Charlie Taylor, the government's advisor on behaviour, publishes his report on improving attendance at school. As Jeevan Vasagar reports, he will say that headteachers should be able to impose increased fines on parents whose children miss school without a valid reason and that the money should be docked automatically from child benefit if they fail to pay.em11.30amem Boris Johnson takes part in a Q&A on Mumsnet. You can post a question here.em1pm emDavid Cameron launches the Conservatives' local election campaign with a speech in Derbyshire. He will say that Tory authorities are the best-value councils in the country.em2.30pmem Michael Gove, the education secretary, takes questions in the Commons.As usual, I'll be covering all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I'll post a lunchtime summary before 1pm and another at around 4pm.If you want to follow me on Twitter, I'm on @AndrewSparrow.And if you're a hardcore fan, you can follow @gdnpoliticslive. It's an automated feed that tweets the start of every new post that I put on the blog.!-- Block 2 --9.05am As I've already mentioned, David Gauke, the Treasury minister, was on the Today programme at 8.10 being interviewed about impact that the cap on tax relief will have on charitable giving. Here are the key points. I've taken the quotes from PoliticsHome.? Gauke said the Treasury would try to protect charities particularly affected by the cap. But he also stressed that ministers were in no hurry to announce details of how they would do this because the cap is not coming into force immediately.blockquoteWhat we've said is that where there is a particular big impact, and we identified this on March 21, in the budget document, bottom of page 33, we said that we were very keen to explore with those charities ways in which we could take steps to protect [them]. Remember, we're not legislating for this today. This is something that will come in in next year's finance bill and we made it very clear from the very beginning that between now and then we were going to be working with charities to find ways to protect those charities that are particularly affected by large donations.blockquote? He defended the plan to impose a cap on tax reliefs generally. We have a number of reliefs that are uncapped and as a consequence, as the figures that we have released overnight show, there are some very wealthy individuals who pay very little in income tax, he said. We don't think it's entirely fair that the tax system, as currently designed, does mean that there are some very wealth individuals who are essentially able to take themselves out of the income tax system.? He said the cap was not being introduced to target dodgy charities. blockquote classquotedOf that charitable giving element we accept that the majority of that - indeed, we'll accept the vast majority of that - is not what one would call abusive in terms of dodgy charities.blockquote!-- Block 3 -- Photograph Facundo ArrizabalagaEPA 9.16am Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, was on ITV's Daybreak this morning talking about his consultation on whether cigarettes should be sold in plain packets. He said that he had a genuinely open mind on the issue.blockquoteIt is an open question at the moment ... Would plain packaging of the type you are demonstrating, would it offer a significant additional health benefit? At the moment actually our minds are open on this subject - mine too. blockquote!-- Block 4 --9.26am Tom Watson's book on the phone hacking affair, Dial M for Murdoch, is being published on Thursday, according to LabourList. !-- Block 5 -- Photograph Facundo ArrizabalagaEPA 9.51am The Department for Education has now published Charlie Taylor's report on improving attendance at school. The government has accepted his recommendation that fines should increase for parents whose children miss school and it will consider his proposal for parents who do not pay their fines to have the money taken from their child benefit. Here's an extract from the news release.blockquoteCharlie Taylor has recommended a toughening up of the system by increasing the fines. The government has accepted this recommendation and from September 2012, head teachers will be able impose a fine of £60 a £10 increase on parents whom they consider are allowing their child to miss too much school without a valid reason. If they fail to pay within 28 days it will double to £120 a £20 increase, to be paid within 42 days.Charlie Taylor has also recommended that once the fine has doubled, the money should be recovered automatically from child benefit. Parents who do not receive child benefit and fail to pay fines would have the money recovered through county courts ...The government will consider this recommendation further and work with other government departments to explore ways to make the payment of penalty notices swift and certain.blockquoteAnd here's a comment from Michael Gove, the education secretary.blockquote classquotedWe must do everything to improve school attendance so that all children benefit from good teaching. Successive governments have focussed overwhelmingly on tackling truancy amongst older children. We now need a fundamental change in approach.Improving the attendance of younger children at primary school will reduce the number who develop truancy problems when they are older.We must also equip schools to tackle the minority of parents who do not heed that message. Sanctions are most likely to work if their effect is immediate and if they are simple to administer. I agree that the current penalty notice scheme should be simplified. I will work with my colleagues in the government to explore ways to make the payment of penalty notices swift and certain.blockquote!-- Block 6 --10.07am A colleague tells me that David Cameron is doing a campaign event with Boris Johnson this morning. But only a select group of local journalists have been invited. No wonder. In the updated version of his Boris Johnson biography, Andrew Gimson describes what happened when they attended an event together before the 2010 general election.blockquote classquotedNobody manages to get Boris to walk at heel for very long, and part of the joy of watching him with Cameron is waiting for the moment Boris will commit some gross act of indiscipline. The day before they met, Cameon had launched the voluntary national citizen service for 16-year-olds. Boris proceeded to declare, in a ludicrous display of loyalty, I think it should be compulsory.Come on, Mayor, Cameron said, trying to close down the conversation. Guto Harri [Johnson's communications chief] afterwards offered in ingenious justification for Boris's call for compulsion That's a very enthusiastic way of saying it's a great idea.blockquoteJohnson must be the only British politician currently in the frontline with two first-rate biographies about him in the bookshops. The Gimson book is a wonderful read and highly perceptive, although not liable to be criticised as over-harsh. Sonia Purnell's biography is also excellent. It's less forgiving, and much more thorough on Johnson's record as mayor.!-- Block 7 -- Photograph Flying Colours Photography LtdGetty Images 10.35am Here is some reaction to the proposals from Charlie Taylor for truanting fines to be increazed and for parents who don't pay those fines to have their child benefit docked. See 9.51am.From Stephen Twigg pictured, the shadow education secretaryblockquoteIt is right to fine parents of persistent truants. However, it is even more important to ensure that truancy is prevented or tackled early. Schools need to be places children want to attend with engaging teaching and a relevant curriculum. The Government is also cutting back on education welfare officers who can identify truancy early.We need to look at the schools who have addressed this such as Barlow Hall Primary in Manchester and secondaries like the City Academy Norwich and see how we can learn from their success.blockquoteFrom Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachersblockquote classquotedPersistent truancy is obviously a problem. The effect of regular absenteeism from school on a pupil's confidence and ability to understand what is being taught in the classroom is greatly affected.However it is not an issue that will be solved by fining parents. Deducting money from child benefit will have huge financial repercussions for many families. Having less money for food and bills will simply create a whole new set of problems. Parents need to be part of the solution and not be further alienated from the education of their children. We need properly resourced support systems, run by the local authority, which schools can call upon to deal with hard core truancy. With local authority budgets being so extensively cut this is increasingly difficult to achieve and is a refection of the short-sightedness of this government's policies.blockquote!-- Block 8 --10.52am You can read all today's Guardian politics stories here. And all the Guardian politics stories filed yesterday, including some in today's paper, are here.As for the rest of the papers, here are some stories that are particularly interesting.? The Financial Times subscription says George Osborne is willing to offer concessions to charities worried about the impact of the tax relief cap.blockquote classquotedPeople close to the chancellor have told the Financial Times Mr Osborne is considering two proposals in particular to limit the damage done by his proposed cap on tax reliefs of whichever is higher 25 per cent of a person's income or £50,000. One plan is to have a separate limit on charitable donations of 50 per cent of a person's income, allowing charities to claim tens of millions of pounds more in reliefs than under the current plan. Another is to let donors roll over any unused tax reliefs into future years if they are used for donations.Treasury officials are locked in talks with representatives from the voluntary sector, and expect to make final decisions on how best to mitigate the effects of the planned cap in a few months. But they estimate raising the ceiling for charitable donations to 50 per cent would cost £40m, taking the overall savings from capping charities tax relief down to just £20m.blockquote? Jason Groves in the Daily Mail says ministers are going to scrap the so-called conservatory tax - the plan to require homeowners to buildings items like a conservatory to invest in energy saving measures.blockquote classquotedMinisters are to scrap plans for a 'conservatory tax' following a massive Tory backlash.A senior Government source told the Mail that the proposals are 'dead in the water'.This latest abrupt U-turn comes only a week after we revealed the move which would force homeowners to fork out hundreds of pounds extra on measures to improve energy efficiency when they build an extension or fit a boiler.Although the Liberal Democrat-inspired plans are still out for consultation, the source said 'We are absolutely not going to have a conservatory tax. It is an attack on aspiration and we want nothing to do with it. It will be blocked.'blockquote? Oliver Wright in the Independent watches Lady Warsi, the Conservative co-chairman, on the campaign trail.blockquote classquotedHer analysis of the Tory problem at the next election is pertinent. She points out that in order to win an overall majority the party cannot rely on the Shires and must do better in the kind of places, like Dewsbury, where she grew up. The battleground will be the 35 most marginal seats that we hold and the 35 seats which we need to win. If you see where our marginal seats are they are predominantly in the North. They are predominantly in urban areas. And they are predominantly in seats which have large non-white populations.Those are the areas we need to concentrate on. We have to win more seats which are urban and get votes from people who are not white.blockquote? Tom Coghlan in the Times paywall says David Cameron is being pressed to change his plans for Britain's aircraft carrier programme.blockquote classquotedDavid Cameron is due to be presented with what officials believe is an overwhelming case for a change of policy on Britain's troubled aircraft carrier programme.The Times has learnt that Forces chiefs will unanimously advocate that the Government should abandon plans to buy the conventional carrier version of the American Joint Strike Fighter — the F35C.Instead, a reassessment of the carrier programme will advise the Government to revert to the plans of the previous Labour administration to buy the STOVL short take-off, vertical landing F35B version of the Joint Strike Fighter. blockquoteI'm off to the lobby briefing now. I'll post again after 11.30am.!-- Block 9 --11.39am I'm just back from the Number 10 lobby briefing. It wasn't the most informative 30 minutes of my life, but we now know that a formal consultation on how charities can be protected when the tax relief cap is implemented will be published in the summer.I'll post a full summary shortly.!-- Block 10 -- Photograph Andy RainEPA 11.42am Here are the main points from the Number 10 lobby briefing.? The Treasury will publish a formal consultation in the summer on the implementation of the cap on tax relief, the prime minister's spokeswoman said. Obviously we want to ensure that we do not impact upon charitable giving, she said. But, when pressed upon the possible concessions mentioned in the Financial Times see 10.52am, the spokeswoman refused to go beyond saying that there would be a consultation.? Britain is making good progress in its bid to reach a deal with Jordan that will allow the deportation of Abu Qatada. We are confident that when a deal is done, we will have the assurances we need to resume the deportation process that will see Qatada put on a plane, the prime minister's spokeswoman said.? Number 10 confirmed that the Ministry of Defence is reviewing its carrier strike programme. In response to a question about the Times story saying service chiefs want to order a different fighter see 10.52am, the spokeswoman said that the outcome of the review would be announced soon. ? Downing Street played down reports that the plan for the so-called conservatory tax was dead in the water. Asked about the Daily Mail story asserting this see 10.52am, the prime minister's spokeswoman said There is a consultation ongoing. No decisions have been made. As Paul Waugh reports on Twitter, Number 10 are saying something rather different in private. The spokeswoman also said that the majority of conservatories would not be affected by the proposal because it would only apply to people building conservatories that were larger than 30m2. She also dismissed suggestions from Chris Huhne, the former energy secretary, that the government was backing away from the green deal. The commitment to the green deal remains, she said. It's in the coalition agreement.? Number 10 said the way the Afghan security forces responded to the attacks in Kabul yesterday showed that significant progress was being made. The security forces responded bravely, promptly and effectively, the prime minister's spokeswoman said.? David Cameron is likely to raise the death of British businessman Neil Heywood when he meets Li Changchun, a senior Chinese Communist party official, for talks in Downing Street tomorrow, the prime minister's spokeswoman said.? Downing Street would not comment on a report saying that Britain is about to offer an extra £10bn to the IMF. ? Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, has launched a ballot for people who want to apply for free tickets for the Diamond Jubilee celebrations on Tuesday 5 June. Some 10,000 tickets are available.? Crispin Blunt, the justice minister, is today announcing a compensation scheme for Britons injured in terrorist attacks abroad since January 2002. It means those hurt in the Bali attack and other bombings will be able to apply for compensation.? Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, has launched a consultation on whether cigarettes should be sold in plain packaging. See 9.16am. !-- Block 11 --12.39pm In my paper round-up, I'm afraid I missed the Sun story saying YouGov polling suggests the Lib Dems could lose 50 of their 57 seats at the next election. But in the comments yahyah picked it, needless to say. She highlights Peter Kellner's commentary. Here's an extract.blockquote classquotedThe moment when a trend or fashion takes off is a tipping point. Nick Clegg's party has suffered the opposite — a slipping point.Its support in its own seats has slipped to the level where only a handful will be saved.Even if the party recovers some support between now and the next election, it is likely to hold on to only a minority of its seats.The price that the Lib Dems pay for having Government ministers among their ranks could be that the party spends another generation as a tiny force roaming the political wilderness.The party could be British politic's titan arum. That's the plant at Kew Gardens that lies dormant for 30-40 years, then flowers briefly and gloriously. However, when it does flower it gives off a huge stink.blockquote!-- Block 12 --1.30pm Here's a lunchtime summary? An announcement from Number 10 that there will be a consultation on measures to help prevent charities losing out from the cap on tax relief has failed to assure the voluntary sector. David Gauke, a Treasury minister, used an interview this morning to say that the government would try to protect charities particularly affected by the cap and Number 10 later said that a consulation on this would be published in the summer. Further details of the forthcoming consultation are here pdf. But Sir Stuart Etherington, Chief Executive of National Council for Voluntary Organisations, said that government had to act now.blockquote classquotedThis consultation is old news, and will not happen early enough to stem the tide of alarm and uncertainty already hitting charities and donors. The government needs to act now.blockquoteAnd John Low, chief executive of the Charities Aid Foundation, also issued a statement calling for a rethink. This has been a shambles, he said.blockquote classquotedThe government simply has not thought this through. We are not asking the government to drop caps on all tax relief. We are saying that ministers should think again about extending that cap on tax reliefs to include charitable donations. If there is evidence of abuse then by all means put appropriate measures in place but a blanket cap throws the baby out with the bath water.blockquote? David Cameron has claimed that Tory authorities are the best value councils in the country. He is launching the Conservative local election campaign this afternoon and, in extracts from his speech released in advance, he attacked Labour's record.blockquote classquotedLabour councils remain trapped in their old wasteful ways. Sunderland spent £113,000 on lobbyists, Lambeth spent almost £30,000 on a sculpture called Foxes and Cherries and Camden spent almost £200,000 on seven trade union activists. We are shining a spotlight on that waste.We've changed the rules so that councils have to reveal everything they spend above £500 and hold a vote on huge salaries for top staff. We've also given councils new freedoms to co-operate, saving a fortune in back office costs, to spend money from the business rate locally, and we've scrapped a ton of red tape that saw Whitehall order councils how to spend their money.blockquoteBut Tim Farron, the Lib Dem president, issued a statement saying that Lib Dem councils were the most prudent. blockquote classquotedWhile Labour and the Tories fight over how many of their councils raised Council Tax, it's clear that with the Liberal Democrats your money is safest no Liberal Democrat-run council in England has raised Council Tax.This stands in stark contrast to Tory and Labour-run councils which have been racking up the Council Tax in these difficult times. Ordinary working families are struggling already with paying bills, without their councils increasing the burden.blockquoteLabour has put out figures showing people living in Labour council areas pay less council tax than people living in areas with councils run by the Tories or the Lib Dems.? A YouGov poll has shown Boris Johnson ahead of Ken Livingstone by six points. But, as the Evening Standard reports, it also shows that voters think Johnson is more interested standing up for the wealthy than for any other group. Labour's Tessa Jowell said This poll shows that Ken Livingstone is closing the gap on Boris Johnson, there is growing support for Ken's pledges for cheaper fares and more police and that the Tory smears don't work. YouGov's Peter Kellner has more on the poll here. Johnson has also been taking part in a Q&A on Mumsnet.? George Galloway has claimed that he is the Robin Hood of British politics. He made the comment in an interview before taking his seat this afternoon as the new Respect MP for Bradford West. According to Dot Commons' Diary, he will be introduced by Sir Peter Tapsell, the Tory father of the Commons, and Gerry Sutcliffe, the Labour MP for Bradford South. Speaking to journalists at the Commons before taking his seat, Galloway said he was just an advance army for his party.blockquote classquotedIt is good to be back but I'm just the advance party. There's an army mustering in the North and in the great industrial and post-industrial cities of this country, an army of discontented, alienated people who feel that this place has let them down, it has failed the country and it has failed the people. I notice that New Labour is terrified of any further by-elections and I can understand why because this concept that I have coined, it's rather rude, that three cheeks of the same backside pretty much sums them up as far as most people in the country are concerned.blockquote? Lord Ahmed, the Labour peer peer suspended by the party over reports that he offered a £10m bounty for the capture of Barack Obama, has denied making the remarks. George Galloway said Labour's decision to suspend Ahmed was suicide for the party. I think the suspension of Lord Nazir Ahmed indicates that New Labour is on some sort of suicide mission so far as the Muslim vote goes, Galloway said. Lord Nazir is a great figure - not politically close to me - among the Asian heritage population of Britain.? Crispin Blunt, the justice minister, has announced that Britons injured in terrorist attacks abroad since 2002 will be able to apply for compensation from a new fund. ? Workers who maintain and upgrade tube lines on London Underground have voted to go on strike in a dispute over pensions and benefits.!-- Block 13 --2.13pm David Cameron should have delivered his speech launching the Conservative local election campaign by now. I haven't seen any of it on Sky or BBC News yet, but Tory HQ have sent out the text. There's nothing new in it in policy terms, but some of the rhetoric is moderately interesting. Photograph Achmad IbrahimAP Here are the key points.? Cameron said the Tories were a party of radical change. He was making a general point, but he cited Michael Gove in particular as an example of a minister pushing through radical reform. And he said there was no point being in government if you just want to play it safe.blockquote classquotedWhen you come into office any party has a choice.You can tinker around a bit and put a lick of paint on the old problems ...Or you can take a different path.You can close that Number 10 door behind you and say this is our chance; our precious chance to change our country and we're going to seize it.You can hear all those whispering voices saying play it safe if you want to win a majority and don't rub too many people up the wrong way and say No – that is not us; that is not our party.blockquote? He suggested that the government will take away child benefit from the parents of truanting children who do not pay their fines. This is a recommendation in the Charlie Taylor report and officially the government is only considering it. See 9.51am. But Cameron signalled that he was in favour.blockquote classquoted[Taylor] asks an important question if parents can't get their child into school, why should they be able to claim child benefit?Because I'm not prepared to see truancy and ill-discipline wreck the lives of the next generation. blockquote? He accused Labour of presiding over an age of absurdity.blockquote classquotedIn case that pencil should hover over Labour's box, let's remind them just what a complete and utter disaster Labour were for this country.Theirs was an age of absurdity, when everything was turned upside down.Where some people were paid more to stay at home than to go to work.Where police spent more time filling in forms than on the beat.And where the solution to debt was yes debt, debt and more debt.So our message has got to be clear if you look at what Labour did to our country, why on Earth would you let them anywhere near your council.blockquoteIt sounds as if someone at Number 10 has been reading Michael Foley's book.? He said the Conservatives were a one nation party. We are the proud party of this one nation, he said. Nick Clegg was also describing the Lib Dems as a one nation party at the Lib Dem spring conference.? He said the Conservatives were the party for strivers.blockquote classquotedThere's only one box in which to put your cross on May the 3rd and that is for the party that cares about the strivers, the battlers, the family-raisers, the community-builders the Conservative party.blockquoteSo, if you're a striver, you should vote Tory. But if you're a grafter, according to Ed Miliband you should vote Labour. What do you do if you're a striver and a grafter? I suppose you could vote Lib Dem ...? He said the Eurozone was on the brink of another recession.? He suggested the Tories would fight a flat-out, full-throttle election campaign.blockquote classquotedNow's is not the time to put our feet up.It's time to roll our sleeves up.We don't need a sort-of strategy, or a kind-of campaign.We need a flat-out, full-throttle fight.blockquote!-- Block 14 -- Photograph Stephen HirdREUTERS 2.56pm As I reported earlier see 11.42am, Downing Street said nothing at the 11am lobby briefing to knock down the Times story saying that the government is on the brink of announcing a U-turn over the carrier programme. In such circumstances it's always tempting for the opposition to gloat. It's a temptation that Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, has failed to resist. Here's the statement that he has put out.blockquoteThis U-turn would be a humiliation for the prime minister. This is a mess entirely of ministers' own making. The government acted without strategy and in haste. The aircraft carrier programme goes to the heart of our ability to act in the world but is now confused and incoherent.The government's rushed defence review failed to match ends with means. Ministers recognised the value of carrier strike, yet cut it for a decade and based our future policy on equipment which may be unaffordable. Ministers overturned and criticised Labour's preferred option but it now appears this was the best option.This was all so avoidable. There are now very serious issues around cost, capability and timescale which must be resolved. This disarray is causing deep concern and undermining our country's interests.blockquote!-- Block 15 -- Photograph SportsphotoGeoff Newton 3.24pm Sadiq Khan pictured, the shadow justice secretary, has put out this statement about the government's compensation scheme for Britons injured in terrorist attacks abroad.blockquoteToday's long delayed announcement is another important step forward in compensating the innocent British victims of overseas terrorist atrocities such as in Bali and Mumbai. It's now two years since cross-party agreement was reached on a scheme supporting those whose lives were devastated by simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We'll continue to pressure the Tory-led government to roll out the scheme as quickly as possible, as the delay to date has only compounded the misery of these innocent victims and their families.Additionally, the government needs to bring forward as a matter of urgency the scheme to cover those affected by any future terrorist attacks. Although we sincerely hope that use of such a scheme will never be required, it is important that is not further delayed.blockquote!-- Block 16 --3.35pm George Galloway is taking his seat in the Commons. Was he going to swear the oath on the Bible or the Koran? Neither. He decided to affirm.!-- Block 17 --3.47pm Here's an afternoon reading list.? Robert Peston on his blog says the Tories have published information about the amount of tax paid by high earners that Labour refused to release.blockquote classquotedHere's the punchline in the comedy of politics.Labour had persuaded itself that the super-rich were making a big indirect contribution to the health of the British economy by employing lots of people at their hedge funds, private equity firms and similar new-generation financial businesses - which many would see as the antithesis of what Labour would normally believe.So a Labour-controlled Treasury was not desperately keen to shout about how these phenomenally well-heeled people exploited tax loopholes to massively cut the rate of tax they pay on their income in many cases their tax rates were below what those on low and middling incomes typically pay.Meanwhile a Tory Chancellor, George Osborne, is convinced that those on the highest incomes are not making a proper contribution to the reduction of the government's excessive deficit - and so he wants to limit their ability to avoid tax, including through his controversial plan to limit how much they can cut their tax bill by making big contributions to charity.blockquote? Kiran Stacey at the Financial Times says the figures released by the Treasury yesterday about the tax paid by high earners show that most people who should pay the 50p rate do pay it.blockquote classquotedUsing these stats, we are able to say that that just below 10 per cent of people earning over £150,000 and so in the 50p band were definitely paying less than they would have done if they had taken no tax avoidance measures.It is too much of a stretch to say that 90 per cent were therefore paying their full tax rate – the effective tax rate at the top end is above 40 per cent, which means we cannot filter out those who are paying their full rate from those who are not because the upper level we are given is simply 40 per cent and over.But what is clear is that the vast majority of high earners do seem to have paid the full amount of tax that HMRC might have expected, and of those who didn't, only a very small proportion took such massive avoidance measures that they paid barely any.blockquote? Peter Watt at Labour Uncut says Ed Miliband's initiative on party funding could backfire.blockquote classquotedAlthough Ed goes some way to addressing the big money issue, he does not go far enough; leaving a critical opening for the Tories to run through. For that reason, Ed's proposal could well be politically disastrous.While Ed proposes greater transparency he specifically rules out changing the opt-out option. The presumption is that I will want to pay some money to the Labour party when I join an affiliated trade union unless I specifically choose not to.At a stroke it makes a total nonsense of the greater transparency Ed proposes. The Labour party cannot seriously claim to have 3 million affiliated members when many don't know that they are a member and significant numbers probably wouldn't be if they were asked.blockquote? Jo Murphy at the Standard says the YouGov London mayoral poll shows Boris Johnson is miles ahead amongst women. The full YouGov figures are here.? Anthony Wells at UK Polling Report has more on the YouGov poll suggesting that the Lib Dems could lose 50 of shoes their 57 seats. See 12.39pm.!-- Block 18 --4.30pm Here's an afternoon summary.? David Cameron has said that the Tories are a party of radical change. In a speech launching his party's local election campaign, he said there was no point being in government to play it safe. See 2.13pm.? Cameron has said the government has plenty of time to amend its plans for a cap on tax relief to protect charities. Asked about the controversy, he signalled that there would be concessions.blockquote classquotedThis was never going to introduced until next year - plenty of time to get it right, plenty of time to consult and to listen. But the key principle is - more for charities and philanthropic giving - yes. Allowing people to drive their tax rate down to 10% when they are some of the richest people in the country - no.blockquote? John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, has hinted that he is opposed to an attempt by the attorney general for Northern Ireland to prosecute Peter Hain for criticising a judge in his memoirs. David Davis, the Tory backbencher, raised the issue in the Commons on a point of order. He said Hain was being prosecuted for a crime known as scandalising the court and that this law had been described as obsolete in 1899. Davis went onblockquote classquotedOur freedom of speech to criticise the judiciary and judicial process is fundamental to the operation of this House.blockquoteDavis asked Bercow what he would be doing, in the light of the prosecution, to protect the right of MPs. This is what Bercow said to him.blockquote classquotedI have listened carefully and, if I may so, respectfully to what the right honourable gentleman has said. These are extremely important matters and there are issues of devolved responsibility and, possibly, sub judice. I will reflect further on what the right honourable gentleman has said and revert to him if necessary. In the meantime I know - and I think I can say this with great confidence - that he will draw upon the skills and willingness to assist of the table office. I hope that that is helpful to him and to the House.blockquoteAt face value Bercow was sitting on the fence. But that respectfully sounded very much like code for I agree with you. And, in making the point about the table office, Bercow seemed to be saying that Davis should table an early day motion criticising the prosecution.? A senior Tory MP has urged the government to drop its plan to charge VAT for repairs to church buildings. In the budget George Osborne said that he would end the VAT exemption for improvement, alteration and restoration works to Grade One and Grade Two listed buildings. On the World at One Sir Peter Bottomley said church buildings should be protected.blockquote classquotedThe Church of England has half the listed buildings in the country. The government I think either needs to start saying we'll recognise the special position of those looking after places of worship - which will be predominantly the Church of England - or roll back this provision, or do something which will make life fairer.The government needs to listen to the churches and pay attention. I hope that the government will do so, not on their knees, but looking the Church in the eye and saying 'If we put forward a proposal that was more of a blunderbuss than we intended, how can we move forward together?'blockquoteMore than 10,000 people have already signed an e-petition on this subject. ? Charlie Taylor, the govenrment's behaviour adviser, has said that the government's crackdown on truancy should cover children as young as four.? Dominic Grieve, the attorney general, is to meet MPs on the Comons culture committee in a highly unusual bid to ensure its report on phone hacking does not prejudice potential court proceedings against any of the 45 individuals so far arrested by police.? George Galloway has taken his seat in the Commons.? The Rugby Football Union has confirmed that Caroline Spelman's teenage son Jonathan has been suspended from playing rugby for 21 months after admitting that he took banned substances. As the Press Association reports, Jonathan admitted taking a number of drugs, including anabolic steroids and a growth hormone, when he appeared before an independent disciplinary tribunal on March 26. In February the Spelman family tried to suppress details about the case being published through a High Court injunction but later issued a statement saying Jonathan was deeply sorry for taking the substances. ? John Bercow has announced that Lawrence Ward has been appointed as the new Commons serjeant-at-arms. Ward is currently acting deputy serjeant.That's it for today. Thanks for the comments.
