Finance Bill

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise what happened when the previous Government, to whom he belonged at the time, reduced VAT? Rather than target the reduction, as they were exhorted to do at the time, they applied it across the board. They could have targeted the construction industry, for example, so that extensions to homes and so on could have been encouraged. For some reason, both the Labour Government and this coalition Government seem not to be prepared to target VAT changes.