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Finance (No. 2) Bill

I do not accept that it is something that does not work because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey pointed out, what we are proposing already takes place in a number of European countries, including Greece, Portugal and, most recently—ironically, with the support of UK Ministers—France. The Minister said at the Dispatch Box that since he has been in post, it has been impossible to do such a thing, but it has been done by Portugal, by Greece and, with the support of our own Ministers, by France, so I do not accept that it is beyond the wit of the British civil service. I hold our civil servants in high regard, so if French, Greek and Portuguese civil servants can do such a thing, they can do so, too.