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Finance (No. 2) Bill

The hon. Gentleman must forgive me; I know that he is an accountant by training, but I would not call hundreds of millions of pounds trivial in any context. I remind him of what the Chancellor proudly told the Daily Record in March 1999, when he was attempting to float the official version of what became the HCI. He said"““Britain can no longer afford to lag behind America. Inequality in computer learning today will mean inequality in earning power tomorrow””." Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should take that point up with the Chancellor directly. Someone must tell him that his decisions should remain consistent at least for a few months. Is it any wonder that even Labour Members are beginning to doubt the Chancellor’s judgment? That was evidenced in an excellent article in yesterday’s edition of The Daily Telegraph by Rachel Sylvester, entitled ““Twitchy Labour MPs look to ditch Brown along with Blair””. As she explained,"““Even Mr. Brown’s closest allies in the Commons are becoming frustrated with their preferred leader. Changing people who are set in their ways is very difficult according to one weary MP.””" Quite. This is clearly a decision made in haste by a Chancellor on the look-out for short-term revenue-raising measures. In fairness to the Paymaster General, it must be said that, as so often happens, the Chancellor has made a difficult decision and expected his junior Ministers to front for him. His decision will impede the spread of computer literacy in our country, not least among modestly paid employees and their families, at a time when, according to Hewlett Packard, our international competitors such as China and India are between them churning out more than 100,000 IT graduates a year. The bottom line is that the Government could have refocused the exemptions to protect revenue for the taxpayer, and still have saved the scheme. They had that option, but they did not follow it because they wanted every penny that they could squeeze. Nevertheless, I call on the Government one last time to reverse this erroneous decision—although, sadly, I believe I know the outcome even before I ask the question.