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AMENDMENT OF THE LAW

It is normal on these occasions for me to follow the Chancellor’s Budget statement and fill in the conventional gaps that I feel he has overlooked. I pay tribute to the Chancellor’s specific section on the environment and green taxation and to the efforts of the Conservative party and its leader in moving the issue up the political agenda. I should like to take this opportunity to present the green Budget that I think Parliament should have been offered. Before I do so, however, I would like to preface my speech with a couple of fairly conventional remarks. The House should put on hold the points that the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) made in his speech and use as a point of reference the IMF report that is due to come out this week, which I understand will say that the UK is the fastest and strongest growing economy within the G7. In the context of that strength we should have the courage to make much more profound changes in the nature and shape of our economy. We should not pretend that we would be asked to make those changes—I will take the House through them later—from a position of weakness.