---

Finance (No. 2) Bill

I should be surprised to find that what I said is wrong. Unless the hon. Gentleman produces a definition of what is remote, I do not know how he can come up with a figure of £20 million in his analysis. I turn now to new clause 6, which would require the Chancellor to forecast oil prices. I cannot pretend that the right hon. Gentleman has any greater forecasting powers than Mystic Meg, and there is no evidence that his skills in that respect have been especially good in the past. It is ludicrous to expect the Chancellor to provide a forecast of oil prices. We should all be multimillionaires by now, especially the right hon. Gentleman, if we could actually forecast the price of oil over the next 12 months. If the Lib Dems want to show their true green credentials, they should be figuring out a way to tax carbon emissions. How can one do that? I do not want to digress from the new clauses, but focusing on carbon emissions and charges on them, perhaps through vehicle excise duty—although not the modest premium added by the Chancellor—and seriously charging Chelsea tractors that emit huge amounts of carbon would have been a far more sensible way forward.