Finance (No.2) Bill

The Labour party predominantly supports the Bill. It had its genesis under the previous Labour Government when my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) brought forward many of its measures. We give the Bill a warm reception, although we scrutinised it in Committee, as was our duty, as the Opposition. I was going to give the Minister a much warmer welcome than I might now do, but he raised several points that strayed beyond the Bill, even though they are important for the House to consider. There is a clear difference between the Government and the Opposition on public spending and taxation regimes over the next few years. Even during today's consideration of the Bill, we saw the clear differences between us on child benefit, taxation on banks and video game tax relief. We will return to such important issues in due course. They will frame the economic debate between the Government and the Opposition over the next 12 to 18 months, and we will watch closely how the backdrop to the Bill meets the needs of my constituents and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends in relation to employment, prosperity, taxation and the economic health of the United Kingdom, because we remain of the view that the Government are cutting too far, too fast, and that they will therefore damage the economy. However, let us put those matters to one side because they are not in the Bill. As I said, my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West developed many of the policies in the Bill. The uncontroversial nature of the Bill is attested by the fact that there were only two Divisions in Committee. One was on the sittings motion, following a disagreement about a clash of business in Committee and on the Floor of the House—as a matter of good practice, we should try to avoid that in future. The other Division was on a matter of more significant principle: the definition of ““incapacitated person””. We had a rerun of that debate today. We support many of the detailed provisions in this technical Bill. It includes important measures on foster care relief and relief for adopters. It contains provisions to simplify value added tax and to address film tax credit. As the Minister said, it includes important measures to tackle the smuggling of cigarettes through its consideration of taxation regimes for long cigarettes. We support those measures, which were the subject of discussion in Committee. The Bill puts in place important and welcome green allowances as a kick-start for zero-emission goods vehicles. When we discussed those measures in Committee, there was broad support for their implementation. The Bill gives welcome support for asbestos-related trusts through taxation measures, including on capital gains tax. After we tested the Minister on those measures, we reached the conclusion that they were worthy of general support. We also support the clarification in the Bill on landfill tax. Try as I might in Committee, I could not find much in the Bill with which to disagree. However, our sittings allowed us to tease out the Government's thinking on a range of issues and to reflect the concerns of a number of outside bodies about the implementation of policy, rather than the policy itself. As hon. Members can see, Labour Members are so content with the Bill—and have such trust and faith in my ability—that they have left it to me to bring our proceedings on it to a close. Although we welcome the Bill, we will consider real differences between us regarding the economy of the United Kingdom on future days, and I look forward to those debates in due course.