I’d like to thank all my constituents who have supported my petition to increase the Personal Allowance in Income Tax to the level of the National Minimum Wage to £12,000 or above so that the people earning the minimum wage would not pay any Income Tax.
Yesterday saw the Prime Minister announce that a future Conservative Government would go further than this and increase the allowance to £12,500 over the course of the next parliament, providing we can find the £25bn savings required. He said:
“Today, the minimum wage reaches £6.50 an hour, and before long we’ll reach our next goal of £7.
“I can tell you now that a future Conservative Government will raise the tax-free personal allowance from £10,500 to £12,500. That will take 1 million more of the lowest paid workers out of income tax – and will give a tax cut to 30 million more. So with us, if you work 30 hours a week on minimum wage, you will pay no income tax at all.
“Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Lower taxes for our hard-working people…that’s what I call a Britain that everyone is proud to call home. But we will do something else.”
I’m very pleased that the Prime Minister has made this commitment, and I am so grateful to those constituents who helped me push for this change over the past couple of years.