5. How many women have ceased to be liable for income tax since May 2010. (95939)

The Government are committed to supporting working women. We have increased the personal income tax allowance in successive Budgets, so that anyone earning below £8,105 in 2012-13 will pay no income tax whatsoever. Those changes will take 1.1 million low-income people out of tax altogether, and more than half of them will be women.

I strongly support the coalition Government policy of raising the tax threshold to help people on low and middle incomes, which, of course, particularly helps women, who are more likely to work part-time. Would not more women benefit if the Government went further and faster towards raising the threshold to £10,000, and will my right hon. Friend encourage her Treasury colleagues to make that a priority in the forthcoming Budget?

My hon. Friend is tempting me to go down a route that would be straying on to the role of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Decisions on the way in which we will achieve that coalition commitment will be taken in future Budgets.