Rob Marris MP, Labour’s Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury, responding to the Chair of the Treasury Select Committee calling the Tory inheritance tax cut for estates valued at £1 million and over a “mess”, said:

“Only the Tories would choose to give a tax break to millionaires over the next five years after having increased VAT on families and pensioners in the last parliament. Now even a senior Tory MP is saying what we are all thinking - it’s one big mess.

“The truth is that the Tories are wasting more than £2.6 billion on a tax giveaway to a few thousand families while at the same time 2.6 million working families will be £1,600 a year on average worse off as a result of the Chancellor’s cuts to Universal Credit.

“George Osborne is simply showing how out-of-touch he is when his priorities are cutting inheritance tax for millionaires while the NHS is under pressure this winter, and large parts of the country are under water following huge cuts in funding to flood defences.”