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Finance Bill

I wish to support the amendment. The hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) was surprised that people might wish to support it on its merits rather than on the basis of their political alignments, but it seems perfectly sensible and I am happy to do so. The hon. Member for Christchurch argued for the amendment primarily in terms of the principle of retrospectivity. It is fair to say that there is not a basic theology about retrospective taxation, which has happened in the past. Indeed, when my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy) wrote to the Economic Secretary to ask him for examples, he came up with several, but they related primarily to anti-avoidance measures. Nobody would remotely suggest that the people turning up at an airport and being asked to pay a levy on their tickets are in any sense involved in tax avoidance. That is a completely different concept; the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) made the distinction earlier. Two groups of people will be disadvantaged. The first comprises travellers who bought their tickets before 6 September without any awareness that this was going to happen and will travel after 1 February. There are many people in that category. They are not business travellers, who normally buy tickets fairly close to the point of departure, but people planning a family holiday, probably with a substantial cost involved. The other group comprises travel agents who have decided to carry the cost themselves because they have no alternative, or to avoid alienating their customers. Several travel agents have made that point to me.