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Finance (No. 2) Bill

Not at the moment, because the hon. Gentleman asked me for the evidence and then ridiculed me when I did not provide it. I am going on to give it. Perhaps the home cinema package is helping the excluded—or iPods, which are great, but are hardly about ensuring the take-up of information and communications technology initiatives by the socially excluded. I freely admit that I made a mistake in being much too kind to the hon. Gentleman. I referred to websites and said that I would let him have details. I should have said that if he looks at the sites, he will see that about 75 per cent. show signs of offering leisure equipment outside of the intended exemption. What have the Government done? My hon. Friends the Members for North Swindon (Mr. Wills), for North Durham (Mr. Jones) and for Wolverhampton, South-West referred to that. We have refocused on the low paid and the unemployed, and on making sure that we truly have a strategy that reaches the parts that are excluded from information technology. When removing any tax relief, the Government have not only to consider its popularity, but whether it is still meeting its aims and is not imposing an unfair burden on the taxpayer population as a whole. The tax exemption was a popular scheme and has given many employees access to home computers since 1999, but it does nothing to help those groups who are the most technologically excluded—those on the minimum wage, those not in employment and the elderly. That is what the Government are moving to do and that is why they are removing the HCI exemption. I commend the clause to the House. Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:— The Committee divided: Ayes 281, Noes 158.