Finance Bill

The debate has been going on for some time and many have argued—the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury can be mentioned here—that there is not a person in the House who wants to see the poorest in society hit. That is true, and I would be amazed if there was an hon. Member in the House who deliberately set out to target people. Budgets have to be seen as an overall package, and I have been amazed at how the VAT rise has been picked on as a major catastrophe for the country. The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David) made some interesting points about whether the increase could be phased in for different areas or for different construction industries. That was not done by the previous Government when they raised the rate back to 17.5%. As he said, there was a blanket reduction to 15% and then it all went back up to 17.5%, and those things were not taken into account. The important point that the Committee has to recognise is that although people say this is a political choice, it comes as part of the overall package of the Budget. The overall package of the Budget must not be forgotten; it aimed to try to reduce the risk of interest rates increasing as things come down. That point has been argued across this Chamber many times. Opposition Members disagree on whether interest rates should go up, but there seems to be a lot of evidence that if the deficit was not tackled—