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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

My right hon. and learned Friend returns to the familiar theme of Iraq, and perhaps we should save it for a later debate. However, he is right that people at home listening to the Chancellor must have assumed that they would be better off as a result of a tax-cutting Budget. What the Chancellor did not tell them was that it was a con trick—that the cut in the standard rate of income tax would be more than paid for by the removal of the 10p starting rate and the increase in the national insurance band. It was a classic stealthy trick.