The Tories are showing their true colours over inheritance tax

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‘Inheritance tax does not tax dead people – it is a tax on unrealised capital gains’ (Gareth Fuller/PA) (PA Archive)

Once again, the Conservative government has shown its true colours, bringing forward the near-perennial proposal to lessen or remove inheritance tax. Just imagine the collective savings for the beneficiaries of the PM and cabinet, let alone the Lords and wealthy Tory donors!

The untruths being peddled across all media have certainly outdone the usual nonsense being spouted. Firstly, inheritance tax does not tax dead people. It taxes the beneficiaries’ unearned windfall. Next, it is not taxing the same money twice; that is actually done by VAT. The other point to make is that, essentially, it is a tax on unrealised capital gains, mostly property over a long period of time.

The overwhelming majority of people in this country can only dream of passing on around £1m to their children and this government and the rich know it. Shameful and self-serving once again.

Robert Boston

Kent

Our government is missing the mark on plastic as well as net zero

Rishi Sunak did something amazing last week. He managed to inspire consensus between Just Stop Oil and the chair of the UK arm of one of the world’s largest car manufacturers.

Ford UK chair Lisa Brankin accused the government of endangering the transition to a cleaner future, while Just Stop Oil said the prime minister was leading the UK to “societal collapse”.

From plastic pollution to net zero, Whitehall has shown a worrying propensity to delay badly needed environmental policies. The UK government record is particularly troubling on plastic – a substantial contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2018, Michael Gove vowed to introduce a deposit return scheme across the UK in a bid to radically increase the recycling of drinks containers. Some five years later, we are still waiting for it to get going. And there are now real concerns that the slated 2025 start date will get pushed back even further.

Earlier this year the government delayed the introduction of extended producer responsibility (EPR). EPR is a system in which producers pay the full net costs of the packaging waste they produce. It is now set to be introduced in 2025 at the earliest. These delays risk further hampering attempts to tackle the plastic pollution that blights people and places across the UK.

It’s high time Westminster put itself on the right side of history. Endless delays do untold damage to our planet and deprive businesses of the certainty they need to invest in the future.

Jo Royle

CEO, Common Seas

An unholy embarrassment

In my view, HS2 has been an unholy embarrassment since its inception. Conceived by a Labour government but mismanaged for 13 years by an inept Tory government to its present state of uncertainty.

The money spent on HS2 so far could have been better used to improve education, NHS, social care, and much more. Before wasting taxpayer’s money for faster routes to and from the north of England, which very few of us would use, we needed trains that didn’t break down and ran on time with an infrastructure that was well maintained.

Instead, what have we got? A mishmash of rail companies providing less than adequate services throughout the country at exorbitant ticket prices.

Our railway system and infrastructure urgently need updating but HS2 is not the way to achieve better rail services.

Keith Poole

Basingstoke

A plan or a plot?

With Rishi Sunak announcing the delay to the introduction of a ban on selling non-electric cars and gas boilers, it occurred to me that the real reason for the delay is that the infrastructure required will not be ready.

Where is all the extra electricity going to come from? Where are the plans for a massive increase in transmission lines and street-level power cables? Not to mention the millions of charging points.

It would be nice to think that the government has a fully worked-up plan for all this, or maybe in the absence of a plan they are banking on a Labour government being in place so they can be blamed for the ensuing chaos.

Geoff Forward

Stirling