Finance Bill

I welcome many of the comments made by the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) in speaking to his amendment 55. As he pointed out, it is not dissimilar to my amendment 22, which also suggests a sunset clause, albeit in this case for one year—essentially mirroring the fact that the previous Administration reduced VAT for the period of the economic downturn as a means of stimulating the economy for that 12-month period. It seemed a reasonable proposition to do the same now. There are so many issues covered in this group of amendments, so I hope hon. Members will look carefully at all of them. Before I move on to discuss some of them, I want to deal with amendment 22. The hon. Member for St Ives is right to highlight the fact that the coalition agreement referred to the greater use of sunset clauses in legislation, which would be a healthy thing particularly given the sheer impact such a massive financial change will have on the entire country. We are talking about £12 billion of tax taken from all our constituents, so at the very least we should have the opportunity to have the measure reviewed periodically by the Minister. I think that it would be appropriate to do so after a year, but after two years would be perfectly reasonable. For me, ratcheting up to a permanent 20% VAT rate is entirely unacceptable.