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Finance Bill

Again, I am grateful for your guidance, Mrs. Heal. It is of considerable concern that the loss of the 10p band will hit people on low incomes. It will mean that more people are forced into the tax credit system, with all the serious problems that the House has debated on so many occasions. It cannot help in any way to fulfil the Chancellor’s declared intention of tackling poverty, either. The Chancellor tried to grab the headlines with an income tax cut in the last few words of his Budget statement, but the Bill gives us no such cut—nor will the legislation to come, given the other tax rises that the Chancellor plans to introduce. As Mike Warburton of Grant Thornton said of the Budget:"““This is robbing Peter to pay Paul.””" Michael Saunders of Citigroup said that the Chancellor’s"““version of tax cuts, it appears, is one that still raises the tax burden.””" Peter Spencer, economic adviser to Ernst and Young, said:"““It is a con trick, there’s no doubt about it. I will be amazed if people are duped by it for more than five minutes.””" Clause 1 shows more clearly than ever that the Chancellor’s 11th and final Budget was a tax con, not a tax cut, and the nation has not been fooled by it.