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Finance (No. 2) Bill

I am grateful for your assistance, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was relating my comments partly to the Bill and partly to the Opposition motion, which suggests that the Bill is not an adequate response to the challenges that we face in this globalised world. I apologise if I strayed too widely, but I will, if I may, respond briefly to my hon. Friend’s intervention. I believe that the bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia is No. 1 in tidal terms, but we should consider the implications of the Severn barrage for electricity generation and the like. As for the specific taxes that are or are not in the Budget, I think we should look at airport passenger duty, but there is a difficulty, to which I adverted earlier. A number of Members—I was one over Easter—take cheap flights. It ill behoves us to say that because we are on £60,000 a year, or more in the case of Ministers, we will put up the price of flights so that other people cannot fly everywhere and ruin the environment, although Members are likely to go on doing so, whether or not they have to save for their holidays. We have to be rather careful about stuff like that, because it could undermine support for the environmental, green taxation regime on which a consensus may emerge in the House. I hope that it does. The hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy) was coy about some issues. I should like to know whether she, like me, favours a swingeing top band for vehicle excise duty. I am not sure where the top band should start. Perhaps it should begin with carbon dioxide emissions of 250 g per kilometre, involving a fine of, say, £2,000. Would the hon. Lady care to say whether she or her colleagues would support such a swingeing top rate? She referred to it, but did not say whether she would support it. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady is still making up her mind, with assistance from the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne).