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Finance (No. 2) Bill

On the whole, the debate has been good and instructive, with hon. Members making positive contributions. I congratulate the hon. Members for Chipping Barnet (Mrs. Villiers) and for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy) on their first major speeches from the Front Bench. I genuinely look forward to our debates in Committee, if only because all three political parties will be led by women. Let us hope that we can convince both hon. Members of the virtues of the Bill. Although the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) knows it as well as I do, I must tell other hon. Members who are not veterans of Finance Bill debates that my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) was only warming up this evening. How much I look forward to his contribution in Committee! Let me say to him, in the friendliest way, that brevity would help. The Government believe in a modern and fair tax system that keeps pace with a changing world and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) so eloquently summarised, encourages work and savings, ensures that everybody pays their fair share and delivers world class public services. The Bill contains measures that help the Government to achieve those objectives. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Mr. McFall), who chairs the Treasury Committee and introduced and highlighted parts of its report, reflected on several matters and common themes with the Government. Of course, we shall respond to the Committee in the usual way. However, like the Bill, he went on to focus on measures to support productivity, enterprise and competition, to help the environment and to ensure that the tax system is fair. He referred to targeted measures to tackle tax fraud and avoidance and market distortions, and to ensure that the tax system can respond to the challenges of globalisation—a point echoed by many hon. Members. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West and other hon. Members, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire also spoke about the specific challenges to the environment. It is important to remind hon. Members that CO2 levels will be 15 to 18 per cent. lower in 2010 than in 1990. Greenhouse gases will be 23 to 25 per cent. lower in 2010 than the base year levels. Business sector emissions will be 33 per cent. lower and domestic sector emissions will be 16 per cent. lower than the base levels in 2010. As hon. Members repeatedly pointed out, we have to ensure that we make genuine progress by 2020, that we have a long-term goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 60 per cent. by 2050, and that that is based on a range of measures to tackle the emissions problem.