Finance Bill

I am grateful to the shadow Chief Secretary. Let us consider the other aspects of the Budget, such as the fact that we have ensured that we preserve the free television licence, the fuel payments and the free bus passes—not to mention the triple lock, which he was deriding earlier. This can be checked in Hansard, but from memory I am sure I recall the Chancellor of the Exchequer telling the House quite clearly that a move would take place from the consumer prices index to the retail prices index when he made that announcement. I do not think that it was in the small print—I am sure that the Chancellor stood at the Dispatch Box and made that point quite clear. I am sure that Hansard will back that up and if I am wrong I will acknowledge that to the House, but I am sure that that measure was not snuck out in the small print. As the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer was apparently saying before the election, we cannot just borrow more to pay for services. As I have listened to Opposition Members during the debate, I have been struck by the question: which Labour party are we looking at today? Is it the one that wants to spend more or the one that wants to tax more? So far, in the debates about the cutting of the schools budget we have been told that it is all terrible and that we should have carried on spending more and more money, and today we are hearing that we should not increase taxes. That is how we got into this situation. We owe billions every year. Stacking up the net deficit—