I am afraid that I do not accept that. This is purely weak willed on the part of the Chancellor. I thought that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury did not give us nearly as good a defence of the Bill as the hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse). He managed to situate it within the needs of the business community and give some rationale for it. The more the Minister spoke, the clearer it became that this is indeed a gimmick. I find that odd, because I thought that the Chancellor of the Exchequer wanted to be the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to take decisions, but clearly he does not. He just wants to tie his hands behind his back at every verse end.
I think it would be a good idea to vote against the Bill, and I am slightly disappointed that we are not opposing it. [Hon. Members: “Ah!”] It is not for me to say what the official Front-Bench position is, unfortunately. I want to point out to Conservative Members that we live in a world where the Chancellor has a desire to bring the deficit down very quickly. That is a difficult thing to do, as we saw when he failed comprehensively to achieve his target during the last Parliament. He is now having to go through some very choppy waters to get this done. He made a promise to introduce this legislation to fix VAT, income tax and national insurance because he thought that that would make him a low-tax
Chancellor in the eyes of the British public. The fact is, however, that since then he has increased VAT to 20%, increased vehicle excise duty and increased the insurance premium tax, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) pointed out. He is not a low-tax Chancellor.