No. 10 Afternoon Press Briefing From 26 Nov 2007

Briefing from the British Prime Minister's Spokesman on: Capital gains tax and party funding/David Abrahams.

Afternoon press briefing from 26 November 2007

Capital Gains Tax

Put that the Prime Minister, in his CBI speech today, had flagged up changes to Capital Gains Tax (CGT) by saying that he would listen to peoples' concerns, the Prime Minister's Spokesman (PMS) said that he did not think the Prime Minister had said anything in his speech today that he had not said before or anything that changed policy.

Put that that meant there would be no change to CGT at all, the PMS said the Prime Minister's words spoke for themselves but that tax was a matter for the Treasury and the Chancellor.

Put that the Prime Minister's words could have been understood as meaning that there would be some sort of changes to CGT, the PMS repeated that tax matters were a matter for the Treasury and the Chancellor.

Asked what the Prime Minister meant when he said, 'we will continue to listen and discuss with you the representations', the PMS referred journalists to the PBR document where it said, 'HMRC have today published further details of the Reform package i.e. CGT and will immediately begin discussion on implementation with interested parties'; this did not seem inconsistent with what the Prime Minister had said today, what the Chancellor had said, or what anybody else had said.

Put that that meant people should not expect anything this week to change or reform, the PMS said that he would not pre-empt anything the Chancellor may or may not do; this was entirely a matter for the Chancellor and the Treasury.

Party Funding - David Abrahams

Asked if, to the PMS's knowledge, Mr Abrahams had ever featured in the honours system, the PMS said he had no information regarding that.

Asked if Mr Abrahams was known to the Prime Minister at all, the PMS said that he had not asked the Prime Minister, but that it was a Labour Party funding matter and this particular line of questioning was best directed at the Labour Party.

ENDS

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