EXETER LIB DEM CHANGES TAX POLICY

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 22nd Sep 2009

On Tuesday the Liberal Democrats at their conference in Bournemouth will confirm the party's new approach to income tax and the man behind that change, Graham Oakes, the Lib Dem PPC for Exeter will be there.

At last year's conference the biggest debate of the conference was on the balance between cutting taxes to a new 16p rate and investment in services. Graham believed the cut in Income Tax would only help a small number of people and ignored those people caught in the benefits trap. So he set about looking at alternatives and having settled on raising the starting point at which people pay tax all he then had to do was persuade the Party to back his ideas. Over the past 12 months Graham has been persuading Lib Dems up and down Britain of his new approach.

"I wanted to help people who wanted to work but were caught in the benefits trap. I also wanted to help pensioners who had a small additional income. The third strand had to be a policy that helped the economy. Finally something that helps those students who work their way through University would also be sensible. By raising the tax threshold it helps all those groups, raising the incomes of roughly 4 million people and helps small businesses who would see their lowest staff get a large pay rise despite the recession. "

"I knew the Party would back me when Vince Cable said it made sense."

"I am disappointed that that the media keep on about the Mansion Tax when this redistribution of wealth is the most radical thing in tax policy for years and will help 4 million people, rather than the few thousand millionaires who will now pay a bit more. "