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Occupational Pensions

That was the argument, but as I have just explained, I do not accept it and I do not think that subsequent history showed that it had that effect. It actually made no significant difference. That argument may have been used even by my predecessors in office, but it has been a convenient excuse to put forward when a Chancellor is looking for revenue. Let me move on to how and why the decision was taken. Labour apologists for what happened keep going back to former decisions by my noble Friends Lord Lawson and Lord Lamont, which took place in quite different circumstances. It is relevant to look further into the precise time that we are talking about and the state of the economy then. The three Members I have identified were sitting in that hotel suite at the same time—precisely the same time—that my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell) and myself were looking at the same proposition. We rejected the argument about distributing dividends and the argument that the pensions funds could carry this. It is possible to say that we came to a conclusion that, looking back, was preferable to the one that they reached. I do not believe that, in the end, in any event, that issue is what drove the three new Labour pioneers to the conclusion that they came to. I turn to a book that has been cited once already—I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) was going to take all my speech when he opened the debate. The book is called ““The Unconventional Minister: My Life Inside New Labour? and it is by the hon. Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson). I commend it. I am grateful to him for giving me an inscribed copy of the book when he produced it. I am using it only for political criticism of the decision and certainly no kind of personal attack on him or either of his colleagues. He is candid and makes it quite clear that they were searching for revenue. On page 88, when discussing looking at whether the calculations made by Andersen’s and being checked by the Treasury were right, he says:"““We needed the money. It had to come from somewhere?." That was what actually drove the decision in that first tax-raising Budget in 1997. Why did the Government need the money? The main problem was that they had promised not to raise personal taxation. That was a successful electoral ploy and totally robbed me of the best argument that I was hoping to use against them. They were raising the money to fund their youth employment schemes and other measures. That is what it was for. The hon. Gentleman’s book reminded me that the windfall tax had been announced to pay for that, but it was not enough.