Finance Bill

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. As he knows, with this Budget we have set out more distributional analysis than any previous Government have ever done before. On the VAT increase, I say to him that all tax matters are kept under review. He has a fine reputation for finding opportunities to raise particular points in Parliament, and I am sure that he will do so on this matter. I am sure that there will be opportunities for him, and for other hon. and right hon. Members, to raise these matters in future. For the moment we have put in place an increase in the VAT rate. We cannot make any promises to change it, and it would be dangerous for us to do so, given some of the points that we debated in Committee; a promise of a VAT cut in future is likely to result in a deferral of expenditure. However, this is an ongoing debate and I am sure that he will contribute to it fully, just as he has contributed to this debate fully over the past few days. We believe that this Budget has been demonstrated to be a progressive Budget that deals with the deficit fairly; all sections of society contribute, but the richest pay more than the poorest. I also have to make the point to the House and to my hon. Friend that, of course, we should not look at the VAT increase in isolation, because it is part of a wider package that ensures that the most vulnerable in society are protected. It is also worth making the point that during these days in which we have debated this matter we have learned that support for the VAT increase was more widely spread than we ever realised. With exquisite timing, we learned from Lord Mandelson that the previous Chancellor wanted to raise VAT.