Finance Bill

Not necessarily. Labour Members are currently having to adjust to being in opposition after 13 years in government. No doubt the parliamentary Labour party will set up Back-Bench committees like the Conservative party's 1922 committee. The Conservatives have a long tradition of establishing Back-Bench committees to examine different aspects of policy so that they can better advise their colleagues in government. We are having to make the same adjustment, and my role is to chair the Back-Bench Liberal Democrat committee that deals with economic matters, including taxation and expenditure. I am sure you will pleased to hear, Mr Hood, that I am about to deal with the amendments. Amendment 13, tabled by the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie), proposes that there should be no VAT increase at all. As I observed to the hon. Gentleman in an intervention at the beginning of the debate, it behoves those who say that we should not proceed with the increase to say where they will find £13 billion to fill the hole that that would blow in the Chancellor's Budget. The hon. Gentleman responded to my intervention by saying that he would not proceed with the renewal of Trident, and I have some sympathy with him on those grounds. I think that Trident is a weapons system that the country no longer needs. However, I hold that view on defence and strategy grounds, not on expenditure grounds. In any event, the hon. Gentleman knows—as I know, and everyone in the Chamber knows—that cancelling the renewal of Trident would not save money this year or next year, and would probably save very little in the course of the present Parliament. It certainly would not defray an increase in VAT in this Budget.