Speeches by Yang.

“Professor Leunig, you said just now that all sources of income should be taxed equally. There are many renters in Reading and across the country—my younger brother, for example—who are paying higher effective rates of tax than their landlords, who do not pay national insurance contributions on the rental income that th…”

“But if there was indexation to inflation or to some other index, what would the pros and cons be?”

“This question is to Ms Willis and then to Professor Leunig. We have just been discussing stamp duty land tax, which is charged when you buy a house. I want to turn to capital gains tax, which is charged on some properties when some owners sell a house—primary residences are currently exempted. Ms Willis, could you spea…”

“What is that in prices?”

“Can you give a rough idea of the figures for those different low and high ends that you think are more difficult to value?”

“I see what you are saying. Thank you, Professor Leunig. Mr Donnell, there have been numerous proposals for some version of a proportional property tax, such as Professor Leunig’s. Some of those would require revaluation of properties on a constant basis rather than at the point of sale, where the sale price is a clear,…”

“Apologies; you have been an apolitical policy advisor, and you have worked very closely in Government. What do you think have been the obstacles to the kinds of changes in the taxation and fiscal regime that you just described?”

“Just to be clear, in your proposal, when you say that there needs to be a change to the way that the Government set out their accounts, it seems to imply that there needs to be a change in the fiscal rules. Are you saying that that does not—”

“Professor Leunig, you have been a special adviser—”

“At the time did the Treasury, which I presume had the similar mainstream orthodox view of macroeconomics that academic economists had, warn you that attempting to run a contractionary Budget would delay the recovery in itself?”

“I want to zoom out a bit more. We are talking about the regrets of the 2010s, and I was at university during the 2010s.”

“By 2015-16, central bankers were also coming out not to directly criticise but hint at problems with this monetary fiscal settlement. Central banks had been trying to lean against the impact of a contractionary Budget. For example, in 2016 Mark Carney warned that the Bank on its own could not lift growth off for the UK…”

“I think the families who used Sure Start would have felt differently about that, but let us zoom back.”

“It was generally felt, but was there evidence, because you just referred to evidence?”

“We can go into many different regrets in that stage of my life, but I was studying economics during the coalition Government and I want to return to the topic of growth that we discussed at the beginning. At the time, the accepted orthodoxy of the economics department was that a desire to run a surplus budget at a time…”

“Was there evidence given to you at the time by the Treasury or other Departments about the cost-effectiveness of Sure Start?”

“That is not what you did at the time.”

“Would you propose that this Labour Government continue with its plans?”

“And you felt those were more effective than keeping Sure Start?”

“Mr Osborne, you mentioned that you do not regret scrapping Sure Start because there could have been other investments in early years that would have been more effective. Did you make those other investments?”