Finance Bill

I will turn to those exact points in the rest of my speech if the hon. Gentleman will wait. Let me address the claim that the Bill will, as the Chief Secretary said, help"““businesses that we rely on to rebuild our broken economy””.—[Official Report, 28 June 2010; Vol. 512, c. 674.]" The signs are that those businesses, along with leading economic experts, do not share his optimism. A recent survey of the service sector by the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply showed that confidence in the sector has been dented by the austerity measures announced in the Budget, of which, of course, the Bill is a part. The survey registered a fall in confidence between May and June this year that was the most significant drop since records began 14 years ago. Since the First Reading of the Bill, the International Monetary Fund has updated its 2011 growth forecasts, downgrading that of the UK by 0.4% on its April figures—the largest drop in the forecast of any major economy over that period. The BDO business optimism index, which measures business confidence, saw its sharpest fall since 1995 between May and June this year, and who can blame those involved?