---

AMENDMENT OF THE LAW

I do not know how much carbon was emitted during the speech made by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), but a lot of trees would need to be planted to offset it. This was supposed to be the green Budget, but it is the Chancellor who thought that we were all green, and that we would buy everything that was said at the Dispatch Box. Perhaps we should change Budget day completely, and just publish the Red Book. We would all sit down and read it, and then we would all be able to work out for ourselves what was in it. We would not have all the spin, or have some points excluded, or have the fast delivery of some announcements. That delivery means that it is only when we sit down and work it out that we realise, ““That was a couple of billion of pounds that was just spoken about.”” It is amazing how much emphasis was put on the finale of the Budget speech, about the 2p cut in the basic rate, but the simplification of the tax rates, which means the disappearance of the 10p rate, was rattled through. When we sit down and work through all the tax changes in the Budget, including the national insurance contribution threshold rise, we realise that overall there has been an increase in taxation, and an increase in business taxation, too.